412: How Many Reps Should You Get? With Jason Khalipa.

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 412 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  Things changed suddenly on January 20th, 2016. It was a Wednesday and we had taken our four-year-old daughter Ava to the doctor. She'd been experiencing pain in her legs. At first, we thought these were growing pains, something every child experiences. But soon after, she started to experience severe bruising that just didn't make sense. She'd also had a series of ear infections, bad ear infections. The doctor told us that one of these infections was the worst they'd ever seen. It was pretty ugly stuff. I started to think something was really wrong. At around 2:00 PM, the nurse drew blood for a test. They thought that Ava might have some sort of significant deficiency that was throwing her

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  system out of whack, like a lack of iron. They put a rush on the samples and sent them to the lab. While waiting for the results, we had gone back home. My wife Ashley was making dinner when the lab called at about 6:00 PM. They reported that there was something irregular in Ava's blood work and that we should expect a callback shortly.

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  This was not the kind of thing we wanted to hear.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  Five minutes later, Ava's doctor called.

• 1:24Jocko Willink?

  "You need to take Ava to the Stanford Emergency Room right now," he said. That was all he told us, but the urgency in his voice told us not to hesitate. We didn't have to be told twice. We entered the hospital through the ER and were directed to an individual room for immunocompromised children. A nurse led us to the room and before she handed us off to other staff, she said something that took my wife and me off guard. "There's one piece of advice I have for you," she said. "I've seen a lot of things happen here, a lot of stories. Keep a date night for yourselves. You have to keep your relationship strong." Ashley and I just looked at each other. What the hell is that supposed to mean, I thought?

• 2:08Jocko Willink?

  For a split second, I considered telling her off, but I held back. Her words slowly began to make sense. It was like she had seen couples like us pass through these rooms for years. And she had. She knew we were in for a hell of a ride. After all, we wouldn't have been called in like this if it wasn't a big deal. Soon enough, we would figure out what this was all about. My father-in-law Jeff joined us in the treatment room with Ava as soon as he could. We sat there for hours until around 1 a.m. when a doctor came in. She told us that two more pathologists had looked at the blood test results and asked me if I wanted to step outside of the room to talk about their findings.

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  We went out into the hallway to speak privately. "We're fairly certain your daughter has leukemia," the doctor said. "Are you sure?" I asked. "We're 99% sure."

• 3:09Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a book called "As Many Reps As Possible", written by Jason Khalipa. And Jason is an athlete, a CrossFit Games champion, a businessman, an author, a podcaster, and, most important, a family man. A husband and a father where he has stood up to help his daughter fight a vicious enemy, and that is cancer. And he's here with us tonight to share some of his experiences and lessons learned along the way. Jason, thanks for joining us, man.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's definitely, uh, that's kind of the opening of the book. And it sets a stage for, uh, you know, explaining your whole life and what the trajectory of your life and how this whole situation with your daughter impacted you. And really, just to, uh... Powerful story for sure. Um, but we'll get into that, but let's start at the beginning. Let's start it at, you know, you as a kid growing up and whatnot. So you're from California, right?

• 4:19Speaker 02

  I'm from California, Northern California.

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  And born in eighty five?

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Eighty five, yeah.

• 4:24Jocko Willink?

  In what, San Jose?

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 4:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So what'd your mom and dad do?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  My mom was a bookkeeper. My dad was an engineer and my dad came here from Iran. My mom came here from Rhode Island.

• 4:36Jocko Willink?

  From where? Rhode Island?

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, her family was originally from Italy, but yeah.

• 4:41Jocko Willink?

  You can't say my dad's from Iran and my mom's from Rhode Island.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  But they met here in California. Yeah, it's all good.

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  And, and so they, they met, they got married. You got brothers and sisters?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  I have one sister. She's older than me.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  Older than you?

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:56Jocko Willink?

  Did she bully you when you were a kid?

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Bully me? Nah, not so much.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  How much older?

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Uh, she was like three years older. So just old enough where we were able to, you know, be in high school one year together. So I helped my parents out.

• 5:08Jocko Willink?

  Made it a little bit easier. And you're, you're, uh, growing up, going to school and you're playing sports. What sports do you play?

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. So growing up, um, you know, my background, I think it's because my dad, I was looking back on this just as a dad now. And your parents do the best they can with what they have. I'm confident that any parent, they want to be the best parent they can, but they lean on their experiences when they were children. So my dad came from Iran and soccer was very popular there. My mom, she didn't really grow up with traditional sports and so I played.

• 5:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, they don't have a lot. I mean, that's way over in Rhode Island.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean Rhode Island, I don't know what's going on over there.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  That's like a, that's a very foreign place, right?

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, very foreign. But, uh, you know, so for me, I started off playing soccer and then I ended up, um, meeting a group of kids around my neighborhood. I got heavily into BMX bike racing, um, when I was around eight or nine years old and I competed in that until I was 15 and went to high school. So I competed on that.

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  What kind of bike did you have?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Uh, like I started off with a GT, then I had a Redline, then I had one called Bad, which was like a undercover brand, like kind of.

• 6:09Jocko Willink?

  Were you sponsored?

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, at the time I was sponsored, yeah.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  How long is a BMX race?

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Maybe depending on the track, a minute, two minutes. I mean, it's not long.

• 6:20Jocko Willink?

  So it's a hardcore sprint.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, looking back on it, it's like that sport actually taught me a lot because you're on the, you're on a gate with like seven other guys. There's eight guys on a, on a, on a gate. And here I am, a young kid and you, the way it goes, it goes novice, intermediate, expert. And then when you turn 16, you can turn pro. So I raced at the expert level on a national circuit. And you know, when you're on the gate, like it's pretty nerve wracking and you gotta take the jump. And whoever hits that first berm first is probably gonna win. And so I think it taught me a lot about mental toughness, individual sport. And then when I got to high school, I, I pivoted out of that sport.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  So you're in the gate with seven other kids.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:57Jocko Willink?

  How far away is the first berm?

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Maybe 100 yards.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  How long does it take to get there? Is it like a four second sprint or something like that?

• 7:05Speaker 02

  I mean, it's all out. It's 100% all out. It, it's, and there's obstacles in the way, right? So you need to learn how to traverse, you know, go over the obstacles and you gotta learn how to just crank it, you know, looking back on it now, you know, I used to, man, I wanted to win so bad, you know, I would ride rollers in my garage. Um, like there's like this essentially rollers, you put a bike on it and you just ride.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  And I would do that all the time because I just wanted to, I wanted to win. And, um, it was, it was a great sport at the time, but I ended up getting out of it. My parents didn't really support it as much. And I think it's because they saw how many injuries occurred from it. And so, you know, I got hurt quite a few times doing it, but it was a great sport when it lasted.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  How do you get hurt? Are you getting mangled up with other bikes?

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I got hurt, um, a few times. One time I broke my collarbone. That one really sucked. I was, I was coming off the gate going super fast and I don't know if my crank, something happened. But long story short, I went over the handlebars and the helmet broke my collarbone when I, when I hit my head. And then another time I was doing what's what they call a rhythm section. So you jump, jump, jump. But once you're in the rhythm section, it's hard to get out. And, and, uh, ended up, anyways, I ended up hitting my face and needing some nose surgery and stuff like that.

• 8:15Jocko Willink?

  So you did that until you're 15. So you did that until high school?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 8:18Jocko Willink?

  And then what sports took over?

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Uh, football and track and field. And so first day of, of high school, I remember I made one of my buddies, Joe Coons. He looks at me, I was a pretty big kid at the time. And he's like, hey, man, you gotta come out for football. And so that's when I tried and, you know, I, I, I learned a lot through football. I made, I made some of my best friends in the world from that. I think team sports are incredibly important. And, um, yeah, that, that became my sport for the next, you know, throughout high school. I wanted to go on to play in college and I just, I didn't apply myself the right way. I was getting recruited a little bit. It just, it didn't work out. And I ended up going to a junior college.

• 8:52Jocko Willink?

  Echo, football questions, go.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. You gotta play. So what position did you play? Ah, so my team, we, we did a, we did some pulling guard stuff. Yeah. So I was playing guard. At the time I was 260. So right now, I'm 215.

• 9:05Jocko Willink?

  You were 260?

• 9:06Speaker 02

  I was 260. You know, I was thinking about it. I haven't seen under 200 pounds on a scale since before I got into high school. Oh damn.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  And how tall are you?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, 5'9 and a half, you know?

• 9:19Speaker 02

  But you gotta be fast for... I was pretty big. Yeah. So I was playing defensive end and guard. And again, I look back on my, my high school and this is something I'm thinking about just as a dad now is like, I didn't reach my potential. I didn't. I, I didn't reach my potential. And maybe my journey was already written and that's when I got into CrossFit later on, et cetera. But, you know, looking back on it, I do have some regrets about just the amount of time that I dedicated to sport versus dedicated to partying or doing other stuff. And, you know, I want to help my kids. I'll make the same mistake.

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  Were you guys lifting?

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  So you were full on into it?

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, we were lifting. We were doing a lot of stuff, but we were doing some stuff that was very unconventional. I remember one year, it was right before like the big game. And one of our coaches had read some literature about stimulating the muscle right before. And so what we did is we worked up to a one, I'll never forget this. We worked up to a one rep max deadlift and then got on a bus to go to our, our, our game. Just, just cold. Just worked up to one rep max deadlift, got in the bus and then went. Those were the kind of things we were doing. Like, I, you know, yeah. Strength and conditioning with one coach and 60 kids is tough.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Okay. So what, what, any other sports you said track and field? What'd you do?

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I threw the shot there and, and that was another example of like, I, I performed well. I still don't think I reached my potential. I just didn't apply myself, you know, I, the thing about high school was like, I was at a school that, and this is my own fault, but I was at a school that would, would just move you forward. Right. And at the time, when I compared myself to my peers, I was always even, meaning like, as long as I was going from freshman, sophomore, junior, and I was getting okay grades, like, we're all even. It wasn't until we applied to colleges, I realized like, hey, like, life doesn't owe you anything. Like, you've been, you've been coasting, man.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  I remember one time my son said to me when he was a little kid, like, some kids can't do any pull-ups. You know what I mean? Like he was making an excuse for only being able to do whatever.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:09Jocko Willink?

  Fourteen pull-ups. Like, bro, what's wrong with you? You little savage. Like, what's wrong with you? And he, you know, he looked at me like, Dad, some kids can't do any pull-ups.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  And you know, just, hey, you cannot compare yourself to these kids that are sitting around doing nothing. You're not gonna be like that, you know, but that's a common thing to do. It'd be easy to say, well, you know, hey, the kids can't even do any. I can do ten or twelve. I'm GTG.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Echo, good to go, baby.

• 11:38Jocko Willink?

  Good to go. And so as you're going through school, how, how are your grades? Is it the same thing with your grades? Like, you're just kind of doing the bare minimum a little bit?

• 11:46Speaker 02

  They're fine. You know, again, like I said, you know, the, the moment of like, when I really woke up and I was like, oh, was when I applied to colleges. So my mom, my dad and my sister all went to a school called Santa Clara University. My wife, or my girlfriend at the time, because we met when we were fourteen.

• 12:02Jocko Willink?

  Ashley.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Ashley. She got accepted. So did all my best friends. They all got accepted to school and I did not get accepted and.

• 12:08Jocko Willink?

  Why not? Grades?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's when I realized like, oh, boy, my mom, my dad, my sister went there and I still didn't get accepted. You know, something, something's up here. So, yeah, I ended up going to a junior college and I applied again, didn't get in. I kept going to junior college, applied again, didn't get in. And then finally, when my high school transcripts were removed, I, I got accepted to Santa Clara.

• 12:33Jocko Willink?

  So anything else you're doing in high school, though? Like you said, you mentioned partying, like are you guys out drinking? Are you getting crazy like that?

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just, I mean, I was one of those popular guys playing football. Just, you know, I, I just, I was just distracted, you know? I didn't, I, I was just having a good time, making a lot of friends, doing a lot of stuff, but I wasn't applying myself to my full potential in school or at sport.

• 12:56Jocko Willink?

  Did you have any idea of what you're going to be doing in the future?

• 12:59Speaker 02

  No, I didn't really think about it. It wasn't like a thought and I think that that's an area that with my kids, I want to try and navigate them through, you know? I think as a parent, you're just trying to think like, what can I do to set them up better than the way I was going? And yeah, so I was just kind of moseying along. And then all of a sudden I got to the junior college, West Valley, and I walk in for my first class and it just woke me up and I wrote about this in the book, but like.

• 13:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you got a good section here in the book. You say this, uh, "My first day at West Valley, let's just say the whole thing was a humbling experience. To be honest, I was a little embarrassed to be there. Not that I was above West Valley, but that I had wasted a lot of my time, talent and energy and I'd fallen short of my potential. The high school atmosphere that I loved was gone. High school had been about chest bumps, high fives and having fun. There was a built in structure and you didn't have to think too much about it. I made the structure work for me and it didn't take a lot of effort. I coasted and all the way from timid freshman to school ruling senior, I found a way to work the system. I did just enough to get by. I played sports because I had some natural size and athleticism. I hung out with my friends during the day and we partied hard on the weekends.

• 14:07Jocko Willink?

  Come Monday, I showed up at classes. I knew I needed to attend and skip the ones I thought I knew I could. Signed, sealed, delivered. I graduated. Sounds familiar, right? When I sat down for my first core curriculum class at West Valley, the differences between my high school life and life in community college started to sink in. I didn't know anyone in the class and it sent me into a bit of a spiral. I found myself in a big lecture hall with people of all ages and backgrounds. I looked around at the room for a familiar face, but all I could see and feel was change, a radical shift from everything I had known. My heart rate spiked and I was scared. We were asked to introduce ourselves to the class. One by one, students stood up, gave their names and offered up a personal detail or two. People were in that room for

• 14:52Jocko Willink?

  all sorts of different reasons and they came from all walks of life. There was one woman sitting next to me who looked like she was in her early twenties. I looked at her, she stood up hoping to establish some unspoken common ground with someone. It didn't turn out that way. I can't remember her name, but when she told the class, "This is my seventh year here", my heart nearly stopped. Seventh year.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Dude, I remember that like it was yesterday. Like it was yesterday. I just remember this woman sitting next to me saying, "This is my seventh year", and I'd say to myself, like, "I gotta get, I gotta get out of here." Like, it was at that moment that I said to myself, like, like, "This is 100% on me. I need to take, you know, to your point, like, ownership, extreme ownership of this situation and, and get moving." So I went from that class immediately to a counselor and I was like, "I gotta get the hell out of here as fast as I can."

• 15:39Jocko Willink?

  By the way, this whole time, you've been working in a gym.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:43Jocko Willink?

  Since you were how old?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Um, so I started working the front desk when I was old enough to. So I think it was like, it was like 15, 16. I started working the front desk because my parents used to go to a health club called Mel Peters Health and Fitness. Shout out to my Mel Peters on the Fitness crew. And, uh, I started working the front desk on the weekends when I wasn't playing sports. And that was a really cool experience. You know, you got to check people in, you got to, you know, conversate with people, sell them stuff. It was, it was a lot of fun. And then, and when I went to college at West Valley, I started working full-time there.

• 16:13Jocko Willink?

  So, and what was your full-time job? Full-time front desk in the beginning?

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Full-time sales.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you picked up in the sales position?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. So at that time, so I was working the front desk when I went to college. Um, two gentlemen, Joe Gigantino and Min Nguyen, really impactful in my life. Um, Min Nguyen was the head of sales and I would always see his commission checks when I was working the front desk and I was always inspired by him. And anyways, he took me underneath his wing and what I loved about sales was that the amount of hard work you put in was directly correlated to the amount of money that you would make. And so I would be able to go to school in the mornings and work from like 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM, which was like peak time at a gym, get the walk-ins, get the leads and just hustle. And at that point, you know, I was making pretty good money throughout college for a, for a college kid.

• 16:57Jocko Willink?

  And what's interesting in the book is you talk about, you talk about your first kind of three business investments in life. And it's, it's cool that you put them in there and it's always tough for people to talk about their mistakes and their shortfalls. So your first investment is in a product and it's, and it's a product. I couldn't, I, I couldn't make this up. The product is called batter blaster. It was batter blaster.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  It was so good. It was, it had so much potential.

• 17:30Jocko Willink?

  So go ahead, explain what.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  So what batter blaster was, it was, it was a pancake, organic pancake in a can. And so think about Cheez Whiz, right? So imagine Cheez Whiz. But instead of it being Cheez Whiz, it, it came out. So like, let's just say you want to make pancakes. You gotta make like the batter, you gotta make all this stuff and you can't just make one. But what if you just wanted one? And so this guy, dude, dude, I'm telling you, man, this was the thing.

• 17:55Jocko Willink?

  Hell yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  And, and so I remember I invested.

• 17:58Jocko Willink?

  How are they looking? Like, who was looking for investments in, how did you get in on this?

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Well, Joe and me. And so Joe and me knew a guy who, who had created it. And so I tried it one day. I was like, wow, this is really good. I brought it to my family. They're like, wow, this is really good. So I invested like five grand in it, which at the time was a lot of money for me. And man, the sky was the limit. I was thinking, oh dude, this, this batter blast can be the next big thing.

• 18:20Jocko Willink?

  You're picking out Cadillacs.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Yes, I was, I was ready. And then all of a sudden we, it got into Costco and there was big opportunity. But yeah, I learned a valuable lesson there is that.

• 18:29Jocko Willink?

  Hey, it got into Costco and that should be the.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  It got into Costco.

• 18:33Jocko Willink?

  Buying Cadillacs, actually.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then all of a sudden, you know, if, if my memory serves me correctly, it got into a big account. I believe it was Costco, but they couldn't keep up with the, you know, inventory and demand. So they needed to take on outside investment or something and they had an opportunity to sell. But the, the leader of the organization at the time didn't want to sell for the amount of money they got. And anyways, they couldn't keep up with the man and they ended up shutting it down. That's what I believe I remember happening. I remember my takeaway from that was that, you know, when you're investing in a people, you know, like you have to, I didn't even know the guy we invested in. I just, I just thought the product was cool and I did it because my friends were doing it. I should have done more due diligence, understood that more, but it was a good lesson. Batter Blaster.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  So wait, wait. So it came out, it was a can, it was pancakes.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  But did you have to cook it or was it already just homemade out of the can? Like, what was the deal?

• 19:23Speaker 02

  No, you had to.

• 19:24Jocko Willink?

  Put it into a pan.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  No, you had to, you had to cook it.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Cook it, right?

• 19:27Speaker 02

  It was like, it was like, uh, it was like the, the batter, right? You would just like spray a little bit in the pan.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  You're good to go.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, and the rest of it keeps in the.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Put it back in the refrigerator.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  In the thing, okay.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Yep, like, almost like a, uh, like a Cool Whip, like a, you know, like a.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  But it makes pancakes.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:42Jocko Willink?

  Were you seeing the vision?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Well, if they couldn't keep up with demand, that means there was massive demand.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  You know, there was, there was a few situations like that where, you know, I just wanted to feel like I was connected, like I was investing and, you know, these gentlemen were super impactful in my life, you know, I would, I would, I would meet, um, probably once or twice a week with Joe on the elliptical. And we would just talk all things business. As, as a young kid, I'm incredibly grateful for those lessons because what I would do is I'd go to school in the morning. Remember at this time, I had kind of woken up, like I was a hard, I was a hard worker at this time. I would go to school, I'd go to the work. And then afterwards I would ride the elliptical at night and, um, we would just talk business and I would just try and pick his brain. Cause I knew at an early age that as soon as I graduated, I wanted to open a gym. I, I, I knew it when I was a sophomore in college.

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  What about this real estate investment that you did?

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Oh, that.

• 20:32Jocko Willink?

  What was this one?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, so.

• 20:34Jocko Willink?

  You bought some land in Idaho, went in on some land in Idaho?

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that one ended up going bankrupt because I don't even remember exactly what happened.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's called a global economic meltdown.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, the economic meltdown happened. This is like 2007, I think it was like 2008, and then all of a sudden I lost, I lost my shirt on that, but my buddies lost more. And so at the time, I didn't feel, I felt bad, but I, I couldn't, didn't really have anybody to.

• 20:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Vent to, cause my buddies had lost a lot more money than me. I think I put another five grand into that one.

• 21:01Jocko Willink?

  And then finally you had faded lifestyle.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  Let's talk faded lifestyle.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Man, I have not faded lifestyle, so. I'm so glad you brought that up. Wow, I haven't thought about that for a while. So a couple of buddies and I, you know, we started a clothing company called Faded Lifestyles. And at the time, you know, we were young kids. We were seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old and faded was like, hey, are you getting, you know, faded like drinking? And so we would, we created a clothing line and we would print our own shirts. We would actually, we actually bought a like,

• 21:33Jocko Willink?

  like screen press?

• 21:34Speaker 02

  Screen press. And we made it ourselves and we would go to clubs. I remember my, my cousin at the time was a club promoter in San Jose. And I should remember we'd get it, we'd be, we wouldn't even be 21. And we got there and we had faded lifestyle stickers on the back of our cars. Like, we thought we were so cool. We'd go up there. Be like, hey, this, this party is brought to you by faded lifestyles. And we would just throw out shirts and stuff. We didn't end up selling much at all, but it was a good, it was a good, you know, the, the takeaway from that experience was there was, I remember when we, when we signed up for the business from the Santa Clara County, there wasn't enough space on the line for us to fill out the amount of people that were part of the company. Cause there was four of us. It's a lot of people when you're, you know, so we put each person's name and the learning lesson there was like partnerships,

• 22:19Speaker 02

  clear guidelines and expectations and how, you know, doing business with friends, you just had to be aware that like, unless you set the expectation early and often, it could end up bad. And in our particular case, nothing was terrible, but it was a good lesson. But we, we, that one sank too, man. I lost.

• 22:34Jocko Willink?

  How much money did you put in there?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  I think I put another five or seven thousand into that one. Cause at the time, you know, I was doing pretty good. Actually, some money I got from selling Nintendo Wies. I put into faded lifestyles. So my, my girlfriend and I at the time, we would, um, we, we wanted to get a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, but there was a high demand. So we ended up realizing that if you take these and you sell them on Craigslist, you actually, you can actually make money. So what we would do is we'd stand in line at Best Buy at like 5am on a Sunday. We'd wait for them. We'd get a Wii. We would then later on sell it on Craigslist. Then we ended up getting our friends to do it. And then each, cause it's one per person. So we ended up getting a bunch of Wies during Christmas time. We sold them to make money and then I used that money to, to fund faded lifestyles.

• 23:17Jocko Willink?

  Damn. Right on. All right. But what this does to you in the book, you talk about this is basically puts you in debt as you graduate from college because you eventually did get transferred over to Santa Clara. And that was after it was on your fourth attempt, three, three rejections, fourth attempt.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought I won the lottery, man.

• 23:37Jocko Willink?

  How bad was your high school transcript?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  You know, looking back on it, it must not have been very good, but I think it was probably like a 2.8 maybe. It does. If I applied three times, it probably was pretty bad.

• 23:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. But you eventually get in there and now you go, what was your degree in?

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Business management.

• 23:54Jocko Willink?

  You graduate, which is cool and you're stoked and now you roll out and I gotta go to the book for this because it's kind of, it's kind of an interesting scenario that goes down and kicks off some of your future life here.

• 24:10Jocko Willink?

  So it says this, so you end up going to this interview for like a financial company. You go to this interview for a financial company and basically the, one of the women that interviews you said, you know, hey, you did okay. Here's your next time for your next interview. You need to get a better suit for your next interview. This one's kind of, you know, not up to speed. And you say in the book, this, this woke me up and the great wealth promised by a job in finance faded into the background. First off, did I really want to spend the rest of my life at work in a suit and tie? Was that what I wanted to be? Despite my best efforts, I had been told to come back looking sharper and better groomed for the next interview. What next interview I thought? I walked out of the office, climbed the steps to the third level of the parking garage.

• 24:55Jocko Willink?

  My future career felt like it was a blazing four alarm fire. Sirens were blaring in my head. This was no joke. It was a good opportunity for a business grad and I, and it was a smart, comfortable choice. Was I in a position to pass it up? It was traditional and safe for sure, but was it me? My heart said, no, absolutely not. It was a resounding, a resounding and echoing no. This was 100% not for me. First off, in my best, if my best dress wasn't good enough for them, then why bother? Besides, this wasn't how I felt comfortable either. If I were to define my ideal dress style, I would characterize it. As clothes in which I can move around in easily. Suits feel like straitjackets. However, attire wasn't the real problem. The problem was that I wanted to go into business for myself.

• 25:39Jocko Willink?

  I wanted to compete in the sport of business. I wanted that business to be in a world in which I was passionate about fitness. I wanted to be my own boss and feel comfortable in my own skin. I wanted to be in in an industry where I wouldn't be judged not by the price of my suit, but by my work ethic and results. The realization of my path poured over me. I was attracted to the uncertainty and discomfort of being an entrepreneur, not because of the risk and reward, but because it would force me to push the boundaries of what I was capable of doing. Perhaps I could sense that it was a pivotal decision. I knew that if I pursued financial services job, 10 years could fly by and I would regret that I hadn't taken the chance to do something greater.

• 26:21Jocko Willink?

  For all I knew, I could be the one sitting at that desk telling some recent grad to press his lapels better next time. I could never be that person and being true to myself was far too important to ignore. The decision was made. I'll never forget the call I made to my dad while walking to my car. I'd never felt as sure of anything in my life as I as I did at that moment when I pulled out my cellphone and dialed. I knew that I needed to follow my passion, my why, and start my own business. The phone rang a few times. I was nervous, as you can imagine, but not because I wasn't sure of my decision. That was certain. I just wasn't sure what my parents would say. It rang again and he finally picked up. Jason, how'd the interview go? Hi Dad, I have to tell you something.

• 27:05Jocko Willink?

  I want to wear gym shorts and a T-shirt to work every day. I want to improve people's lives. I want my hard work to be directly related to my success. I want to open my own gym. It couldn't have been more than two or three seconds. "Okay, let's do it," he said.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  Full support from the old man, huh?

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. My dad, my mom, they're the best. They're the best. I'm, I'm, I am truly blessed to have phenomenal family around me, which, which came in there, but I mean, even ten, tenfold that when Ava got sick, ten, tenfold.

• 27:39Jocko Willink?

  And I forgot to mention this, your dad had leukemia, a form of leukemia when you were 14 years old or 15 years old, something like that?

• 27:46Speaker 02

  High school and he's, he's struggled with that again, you know, in the last couple of years, but yeah, he did. And so he was a, he was, he was definitely a powerful voice during when Ava was sick in the hospital. But in, in, in regards to this, like, it was just one of those moments in life you look back on and you know, I, I really tried my best in that interview. And maybe some people listening can relate to this. I, I really tried to look the part. I wanted to get this job. And when this woman told me like, hey, she said, you did a great job in the interview. You're charismatic, you're whatever. But when you speak to my boss, can you please wear a better suit? And I just remember saying to myself, like, really? That's the takeaway from this? Like, your takeaway is that I'm being judged based on my suit?

• 28:29Speaker 02

  I'm good. Like, I'm out. And you know, from that day forward, you know, it, it, it started a slew of events that just like took off. So I graduated from college in July of 2008. I had signed a lease on a building. It was like 1,200 square feet. It was this junky warehouse that just I fell in love with. The same week, right? And then I won the CrossFit Games like a week or two later.

• 28:57Jocko Willink?

  So when did you get introduced to CrossFit?

• 29:00Speaker 02

  2006. So when I was a junior, sophomore junior in, in college, junior, I was introduced early and

• 29:08Jocko Willink?

  And how'd that go down?

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Austin Begiebing, who I worked with at Mill Peters on the fitness, he said his mom had been looking at a website and, and you know, we should try these workouts. And so at the time I was doing, I obviously I played football and then I got into more traditional like bodybuilding. Right before this, I got introduced to San Shao and Muay Thai, like Chinese kickboxing and obviously Thai kickboxing. And I really got into that. So I dropped from like two sixty or two forty, whatever to like two fifteen. So I was just getting lean. I was, you know, hitting Thai pads and focus mates. It was, it was great. I was sparring all the time. It was awesome. And when he introduced me these workouts, what we would do is we would just kind of cherry pick off the website.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  And in the beginning, I didn't really understand what intensity was. I didn't, I didn't get the idea of intensity. So we would do these workouts and they were like, eh, it's like, okay, cool. And then eventually the one that convinced me that I got really into was we would do a hundred reps of bench press at one thirty-five as fast as we can. Echo and I actually did this like, what, a month ago at the Origin Camp? That was the one that got me because I remember saying to myself, like, I'm trying to get as much work done in as little time as possible. I'm racing the clock. And so what I fell in love with with CrossFit was a coach, the community, the clock, and this idea of complexity. I really liked the idea of learning new skills, whether that be a bar muscle up, muscle up, snatching.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  It brought something to me that unlocked this idea where I was now learning, kind of like jiu jitsu, where I was learning, but I was also able to train hard.

• 30:41Jocko Willink?

  And you got into it, obviously.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. So I got into it in two thousand and six and, and I pivoted what I wanted to do from owning a brick and mortar conventional gym to a CrossFit gym. Because I feel like it aligned with my why. Like, this is nothing against the conventional gym. It's just at that point, a lot of it was like, hey, what are your numbers? How much are you bringing in? You know, how do we get more people in verse? Hey, let's get some people in the door, but let's really make an impact on their lives. Let's have them walk away and be like, I would pay double for this service because you're doing such a great job. And I really connected with that idea of being a coach. So I started coaching classes and then I opened our gym.

• 31:16Jocko Willink?

  Where were you coaching classes at?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, at the.

• 31:19Jocko Willink?

  Did you go to a CrossFit level one seminar?

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I went to my level one and then I started coaching at the same gym that I was working at, the conventional gym. We ended up putting a CrossFit in there. And so it just really, I wasn't coaching for long before I opened my business because it just wasn't as common at that point. Like, we were kind of spearheading this movement along with many other people in the Bay Area, and we were all trying to just learn from each other. And I remember, my first location, I signed a six-month lease, and I signed it on the hood of this guy's truck. I'll never forget this guy. And he really gave me an opportunity. And the only reason why he gave me this opportunity is because I went to San Diego University, and so did he. And I had no money, I had nothing to my name. And I think he just saw the drive, like, hey, I'm not gonna let you down, man. Like,

• 32:03Speaker 02

  if you let me sign this lease, I'll take care of it. And I signed a six-month lease, and I just told myself, I'm either gonna be successful enough to outgrow it, or I'm gonna fail. And obviously, we just kept moving from there forward.

• 32:15Jocko Willink?

  So, you're training, when you were training now for the first CrossFit Games, when was the first CrossFit Games? It was 2007, right?

• 32:23Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 32:23Jocko Willink?

  So now you're going it, so now you had some idea from watching it from the outside, what it was gonna be like. You knew you had to be prepared for basically anything, but you kind of also knew the core methodologies and modalities of strength and fitness that you were needed to be working on. How hard were you training? Were you training like a psycho?

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, like, back then, like, swimming wasn't a part of the CrossFit Games, and the barriers, the margins were a little bit narrower than they are today. But, yeah, I was training hard, but at the time, training hard then was different than it is today. So, I would challenge people on YouTube. So I would, I would like, back then, it was like, OPT, and this guy, Bionic, out of Florida. I would like, do a challenge video. You can still find him on YouTube, where you would do it, and then you'd say, hey, like, can you get better than this? That's what I was pushing myself. And when I showed up for my first CrossFit Games experience, the model just worked for me. I had good events. It just, I was training hard, but back then, it was just once a day was like a big deal. As I grew with the sport, because I competed for the next about 10 years. So from when

• 33:25Speaker 02

  I started, to when I retired from the sport, there was a significant difference in the way people trained.

• 33:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. But this first CrossFit Games, that you got ready for, you were pretty much training once a day? Hard, but you weren't, you would say you're not going as hard as you would end up training later?

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you think about like, and this is something I reflect on a lot is like, anything in life that's like really worth something is you put so much work and dedication into it that when you achieve it, it's like, wow, it's that moment. The 2012, or excuse me, 13 and 14 games meant a lot more to me than 08 because in 08, when I won, like, it was great, but I hadn't put in bulk of years of work to, to get me to that point, you know, I, I got, you know, I was, I was pretty fit and I got lucky with some of the events and I, I remember we.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  What events were you good at in 2008 that helped you win it?

• 34:18Speaker 02

  So there was a, a short hill run. I didn't do that great. I mean, it was like, it was like a chest to bar Fran. That was the first year they ever introduced a chest to bar pull up, which was like unheard of at the time and getting your bar, getting your chest from like, uh, your chin to the, to the bar is much difference. And then, um, they did like a burpy deadlift. I, I did good in all of them, but the way that that year worked, which was unique and will never happen again, was it was called every second counts. And the way they did it this year is that each one of the workouts had similar time domains. So nowadays I would never fly because you want to work different systems. But what they did is they accumulated your time throughout the events. There was, uh, three events on Saturday and then one event on Sunday, something along that line. And they accumulated your score and then based on where you sat, that's how you, they staggered you for the finals.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  So in the finals, I started like a minute and 50 seconds behind the person in first and one by one by one, they went based on where they staggered until they got to me. So I was like an eighth place. And then whoever won that event, won everything because if the, if you caught up with the person in front, you won everything. So that was.

• 35:25Jocko Willink?

  And what was the final event?

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Oh man, it was beautiful. It was beautiful. It was 30 squat clean and jerks for time. And at the time.

• 35:33Jocko Willink?

  With what weight?

• 35:34Speaker 02

  One 55.

• 35:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  And so it was a squat clean and jerk. And at the time. Most people are doing a squawk, lean, stand, reset, jerk, right? For thirty. I asked the question to Boz, who was the head judge at the time. Can we basically cluster it? Yeah, thruster it. He said, yes. So from the get go, so it was like Spielers started, then a bunch of other people started. I'm just watching them. I'm just like sitting there just like, you know, chomping at the bit, ready to go. And I was not the favorite to win at all. No one even knew who I was. And I clustered or I basically squawk, lean, thrustered all of them. And I ended up winning and that was, that was a cool moment for me.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  Could those guys see what you were doing and start to turn up their pace and start to cluster as well?

• 36:19Speaker 02

  A little bit, but you know, at the time, it's like, they didn't even know I was like relevant because everybody was watching Josh Everett at the time, who had an Olympic lifting background. He was like in fourth place. So like, he was the favorite going in. And I was kind of like, you know, I'm in eighth place. Who the hell thinks a guy from eighth place is going to catch up? And so no one was really watching. I just remember, um, you know, it's like.

• 36:39Jocko Willink?

  And it was only thirty?

• 36:40Speaker 02

  It was only thirty. But back then.

• 36:42Jocko Willink?

  What was the total time on that?

• 36:44Speaker 02

  It was like two minutes and thirty seconds.

• 36:45Jocko Willink?

  So how did you make up a minute and fifty six seconds in that short amount of time?

• 36:50Speaker 02

  I'd have to look back on it, but it's because, for example, Chris took six minutes to finish. Right? And then the other guy took five. I just did it significantly faster than, than them. And, uh, you know, I just, it's, it's so funny because after I won, you, you want, there's a, there's a movie called Every Second Counts. And you just see Josh Everett's face like, what? Like, no one knew, like, it was, it was a cool moment.

• 37:14Jocko Willink?

  Josh come in second?

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Uh, Josh came in second. And I think it was Jeremy Teal took third, if I'm not mistaken.

• 37:22Jocko Willink?

  Now all of a sudden you're a freaking CrossFit champion. And this is, uh, you know, I'm trying to think of how big CrossFit was in two thousand and eight. It's definitely on the rise for sure. Uh, we had the CrossFit here at Victory at that time. We started that, well, we got the, the thing in two thousand and seven and we opened the gym in January 2nd of two thousand and eight. But so CrossFit's pretty big. Did you, what, what, what was it like from like a? Game changer for you as a person that was literally unknown and then you win the world championship.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Well, so at that point, you know, social media wasn't super prevalent. There was blogs that were available. I just remember I won and my friends and I went to In-N-Out Burger and we just like, when I won the CrossFit Games, I won like $2,000 and a couple and like a pair of shoes. And I was not doing this for the money, the fame, the fortune. I was doing it because I just wanted to test myself. I wanted to see how do I stack up? And from that day on, I just told myself like, I just had specific rules when it came to training. Like I will never do this for the money and the fame. I'll do it because I want to see where I stack up. And I'll never say no to someone who wants to take a picture with me. Like those are like, like just simple rules. Because eventually that was going to end. And so I got home and our gym obviously got like an influx of members.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  But at the time, like you weren't making enough to live off of in CrossFit like you can now. And so I was still running a business and, and I'm training and, and then, you know, I then competed in '09. I competed for the next 10 years. I worked for CrossFit, all that kind of stuff. It just stemmed a whole lifestyle.

• 38:51Jocko Willink?

  When you say influx of members, is it like crazy? Well, like, at what point did you have to get a bigger gym?

• 38:58Speaker 02

  So we, we moved out after six months, but not because of the CrossFit Games. Like I think people have this misconception about people who will become famous or will do something. You might attract people to your business, but if you're not a good person or if you treat people inappropriately, or if you're not a good coach, just because you're a good athlete, doesn't mean you're a good coach. And I was coaching all the classes at the time. And so we saw an influx, but not like gazillions.

• 39:21Jocko Willink?

  It wasn't a game changer.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it definitely helped, but it wasn't a game changer. And then from there, we expanded our second location. And then we moved on from there.

• 39:28Jocko Willink?

  So now are you starting to think in 2009 or 2008, the rest of 2008, you're starting to train for to win again?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. Yes.

• 39:36Jocko Willink?

  So did you change anything about how you were training? Did you learn anything? Like what was, what was the adjustments you made?

• 39:42Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, at the time I was working really hard, you know, I was the only coach at our gym and I just, I, we had to be successful. And so it was long days, you know, and I would just get in my training during off hours. So I'd get there for the 5:00 AM class, 6:00 AM class, middle of the day I'd hit a session. And I'd hit a little bit of session because I was just at the gym all day long. And so. My training changed because instead of being at the conventional gym or whatnot, I was at a boutique brick and mortar CrossFit gym with no one else around during off hours. So I would just train and that helped me a lot. Going into 2009, though, I learned a lot of, you know, from a mental perspective. I ended up getting a mindset coach. This is later on in my career.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  I wish I had had one earlier because in 2009, I went in there as the current champ. And I just, I became, you know, I thought I need to fire myself up on, you know, hardcore music, this and that. I started off with a 7K hill run and I was getting married the week later. And I just, I got on this hill run. I was the current champ, just, just too much nerves, too much anxiousness. And I ended up passing out and I ended up getting back up. I took basically last night event. I ended up coming back and taking fifth that year. But I learned a lot about myself. Like I, I built some confidence up that like when, when I passed out and Dave Cash was like, hey, if you don't continue, like your games are done. I felt good that I got back up and finished, but I had to ask myself,

• 41:07Speaker 02

  why did I even get in that place in the first place? That was 2009.

• 41:11Jocko Willink?

  So I actually watched that video yesterday of you just gassing out. I mean, it's, it's, it's the definition of gassing out when you see you.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:20Jocko Willink?

  You, so did, was it, you just ran so hard that you literally gassed out? And you just didn't have anything, I mean, you're fall down. You fall down, like you fall down.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  I blacked out, yeah. Um, I, I don't think it has anything to do, I, I think looking back on it, it was just that I had headphones on and I was listening to like Eminem and Tupac. I don't even know what I was listening to, but I was listening to stuff that was like high adrenaline. And I think I made this mistake. I ended up making this mistake again the next year, which I shouldn't have, but I did. Where I thought that I had to like put myself in a state of fired up. But you're going to be fired up when you hear that three, two, one, go gun go off. And I, I, I utilized too much of my adrenaline and I just, I just depleted all my resources. And I had false impressions of how well I should have done on that event. I, I needed to just chill. I ended up getting poison oak that year because we ended up, we crawled up one of the hills.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  And I mean, it was gnarly, it was a gnarly 7K hill run. But I just, the learning lesson there was not that I went too fast. It was that I, I did not conserve energy enough for that moment. And mentally I became just broken.

• 42:30Jocko Willink?

  But the cool thing is, number one, and again, this is in the video, you can watch this video on YouTube. I forget the link, but Castro comes over, like you're laying on the ground. And you, in the book, you, you describe this, you're laying on the ground and you describe Castro coming over and being like, hey dude, if you don't get up, you're out. And you go back to him like, well, what's this phrase you say? I, I, I'm gonna do this absolutely. And you, you can watch this all in the video.

• 42:58Jocko Willink?

  It's just like, and, and then you have to recover. You have like a half an hour to recover.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:04Jocko Willink?

  And then, and then you're getting into the next part of the games, right?

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:10Jocko Willink?

  So there was a, it was basically a very, you know what they say in fighting is, you know, when a guy gets tested, you like they really, if you can have a guy that's a champ and he knocks this guy out in the first round, chokes this guy out in the second round, beats this other guy in the first round, and then finally gets the championship match, and they get tested five rounds, not just five rounds, but five grueling rounds. And people say they get tested, even if they lose, they're like, well, he got tested. He lost the decision, but he kind of passed the test of he can, he's gonna be able to push through stuff. And it seemed to me like that's what that CrossFit Games was for you because you, for all practical purposes, could have been like, yeah, I've obviously got something wrong with me and I'm out. But you didn't. You, and you actually came back and came in fifth, right?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:52Jocko Willink?

  And I think you get, you came, was there 75 competitors when it started? And you came in 75th on the first event.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's not something I think about that often, other than every day, but, but the, the way those, uh, the way that it went is they made cuts. So if I had taken last place in like day two, I would have won the game because I got last place with like, the way the point system worked, was it favored the earlier events more because they had more competitors. And then throughout the weekend, they made cuts. So at the end, if you took last place in that event, it wasn't the same disadvantage than if you did in the beginning. But in either case, right, I didn't perform, I didn't win, took fifth. So, uh, I won what they call the spirit of the games award that year, which was cool, which, you know, signified to me, to your point, like,

• 44:38Speaker 02

  I wasn't, I've never done CrossFit because I wanna like make a buck or whatever. I did it because I just, I love the push. I love seeing like, where do I stack up? Like, why do I do all these hard things? It's because I enjoy, I enjoy that, that feeling of like accomplishment, you know? Not just at CrossFit, all, all the other things I've done, you know?

• 45:01Jocko Willink?

  So what'd you change in your training? Oh yeah, but so you got married, right? You're covered in poison oak, can you get married?

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was, that sucked.

• 45:11Jocko Willink?

  Your wife's like, I'm an, who am I marrying?

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so I poison oak on my hands and, yeah.

• 45:18Jocko Willink?

  Good times.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 45:19Jocko Willink?

  Good honeymoon, I'm sure.

• 45:22Jocko Willink?

  What did you change in your training now going into 2010? Like?

• 45:27Speaker 02

  It was just more volume, you know, 2010, things really, you know, for anybody who's like a CrossFit historian, all, which I don't know how many there are out there, but 2007,

• 45:37Jocko Willink?

  That's a good question.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  2007, 8, 9, we're all at Dave Kasher's ranch.

• 45:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  They ended up going back there during the year of COVID, but nonetheless, it switched to the Home Depot Center in Southern California in Carson. And at that point, like, we really felt we made it, man. Reebok came on as a sponsor, Progenics actually came on as a big sponsor. And like the prize purse went from like 5,000 to 25,000. It was like, it was a big deal. And I get down there and the first event, you know, the national anthem plays, you have jets fly over. I am so fired up. And I went in there as a favor, right? Cause I have a first and a fifth. And I learned a lot of valuable lessons that year. You know, I think that my performance wasn't quite there. After that, I ended up really, you know, just creating a training environment that was conducive, starting doing double days, and then boom, just had a lot of good years after that.

• 46:24Jocko Willink?

  Did you make any fatal mistakes in 2010?

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  What was the fatal mistake?

• 46:30Speaker 02

  I, I just went out too hot in the first event.

• 46:31Jocko Willink?

  Same thing.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  What was the first event?

• 46:33Speaker 02

  It was called Amanda. So Amanda, here, here's the thing about it. The first event of the CrossFit Games 2010 was all about how fast can you move with complex movements and still be able to connect your brain with your body? So it starts off and it goes squat snatches and muscle ups and it's nine, seven, five. That's it. Nine, nine muscle ups, nine squat snatches, I think 135, seven, seven, five, five. That's it. So I get through the nine, nine, I'm winning. I get through the seven, seven, I'm winning. I get back to my five and my body just turns numb and I can't connect it. So I start doing singles, one, one, one. I get back, I'm still in the game.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  And then it's the last five squat snatches and I just, dude, I just, I just break down. I end up, they, they call them now the burpy bar chasers because what would happen is I'd receive it at the bottom and then I could, I just could not connect my brain and I just would drop it. I ended up taking like middle of the pack or like last place. It was, it was bad and I laid on that floor for a solid hour before they had to cart me off. Like I couldn't function. I just, where I have had my faults in competition is that I, I'd rather like, not die, that's, that's an exaggeration, but I'd rather like blackout than, than not go at my best effort.

• 47:53Jocko Willink?

  So this is like a Prefontaine. You know who that is?

• 47:57Speaker 02

  Prefontaine?

• 47:58Jocko Willink?

  Prefontaine, the runner? He's like the, one of the most iconic American runners ever. They call him Pref. And he would run so hard that sometimes he would win first place by a great distance and sometimes, including in the Olympics, he would fall apart. You know, like he would literally just gas himself out and wouldn't, you know, would come in fifth or something.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:22Jocko Willink?

  The guy that would be just, he would just kill. He would just kill. So it sounds like you had a little Prefontaine going.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  I did, I did. After that, after that year though, I ended up having a good run. So after that, it was like, I took a first, a fifth, a 16th, a seventh, a fifth, a second and a third. And then, and then I went team for a year.

• 48:40Jocko Willink?

  So you, you, in 2011, you renamed your gym to NorCal CrossFit. Is that right?

• 48:46Speaker 02

  Uh, 2000, so no, no. So in 2008, it was CrossFit St. Clair.

• 48:50Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Then we opened up another location. We called that CrossFit Mountain View. Then we opened up another location. We started saying, hey, if we have all these different locations, right, because we had some key talent, what should we, we should put them underneath one umbrella. So we called it NorCal CrossFit.

• 49:02Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  And we kept it as NorCal CrossFit. I want to say it was like maybe 2010, 11 through 2016. And then at that point, we said, hey, we want to be in control of our own destiny. We also are not only offering at the time CrossFit, we're offering a variety of different services. So we branded it NC Fit. And I learned a lot through that experience. A lot of mistakes were made. But that's why we were NorCal CrossFit is to be indicative of multi-locations in the Bay Area. And then, and then we rolled out NC Fit. And at the time, like 2011, 12, we also then started expanding globally with Western Digital, which that was a whole nother.

• 49:33Jocko Willink?

  What's, what's Western Digital?

• 49:35Speaker 02

  They're like a

• 49:36Jocko Willink?

  This is a company, right?

• 49:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. So they're, they're a giant company that just acquired SanDisk, you know, a few years ago. They make all kinds of different products and they have locations all over the world. So what happened with that is from a business perspective, let's just talk about 2000, this is like 2011, 11, 12, we'd opened up multiple locations in the Bay Area. I then started doing corporate wellness. So I would show up at these companies at like 5:00 AM and start bringing kettlebells and dumbbells. And what we found was that the, the connections that were being fostered in our gym, we could bring them to companies because that shared suffering in that, that connection. All of a sudden you're having HR talk to legal and instead of them just leaving like an email on the debt or an email there, they'd be in the gym and they'd be like, hey man, just letting you know, I shot you an email. Boom. It increased productivity and it created really strong connections. So we ended up doing a deal with GoPro.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  We worked with Twitter. We worked with all kinds of companies, but Western Digital, at, at the time it was called HGST and then it became Western Digital, was by far our biggest partner. And for 10 years, we serviced our locations all over the world. So in 2011, 2012, we expanded from maybe four brick and mortar, I want to say, to 20. And so I ended up traveling all over the world, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines.

• 50:45Jocko Willink?

  Were all those other additional 16, were all those just to service Western Digital?

• 50:50Speaker 02

  That's right. And so I ended up, so we ended up owning multiple locations and then operating many. And we ended up getting other corporate wellness accounts. And so, yeah, that just, that just was a, a super interesting relationship because I ended up learning how to, how to connect with people from different countries. You'd be out in the Philippines. We had three locations in Malaysia. Just, it was really cool. And that, we, we fostered a strong culture.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  For 10 years and we had to hire people. So, you know, we were hiring a lot of people and that was amazing.

• 51:24Jocko Willink?

  How many people did you end up working or worked in the company?

• 51:27Speaker 02

  I think at our largest, we had about 140 employees. Now we're, you know, a little less than half that and things have just evolved.

• 51:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  Um, so, but yeah, from that, from that point on, um, you know, we, essentially the way our, our business was ran is NC Fit. We owned and operated Brick and Mortar. Then we operated some and then we rolled out a digital model to service gym owners and coaches, which really has done well for us over the years.

• 51:53Jocko Willink?

  Now in 2013, you got second place in the CrossFit Games.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a big deal.

• 51:59Jocko Willink?

  And what was going on? Did you modify your training? What was, what was the deal? How'd you do so well that year? And why didn't you win?

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Ah dude, I thought I was gonna win. Um, damn it, Rich Froning.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  And that's a good reason not to win.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Uh, 2012, 13 and 14, I was able to represent the United States on Team USA, which was really cool too with, with Rich. But anyways, um, it was just a good year. You know, I, I won this half marathon row. I, I won a lot of events and it was just a really good year because in CrossFit, a lot of times when you win an event, it happens very quickly. Like you don't know you're gonna win. You just boom, make it. But that year, there was multiple events. One called the Burden Run and, um, where I knew I was gonna win before I won. And so it was just like a lot of-

• 52:41Jocko Willink?

  Describe the Burden Run.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  So the Burden Run was, it was a three mile run. You came in, you flipped what they called a pig, which was like a multi 100 pound item across a football field. You carried a log like 200 meters and then you pulled a sled. And when Dave, um, briefed it the night before, I just had this vision of like what it would be like to walk in the stadium first. And I knew that if I went into the stadium first, a soccer stadium, I was gonna win the event. Because I wasn't gonna be out pulled on a sled. And so it just, I wasn't getting allowed to happen. So I had this vision and I ended up getting there first by a decent margin. And so I said to myself, hey, don't get, you know, don't get too comfortable. Take that sled, get it halfway and then take it all in. So I ran in there, boom,

• 53:25Speaker 02

  I grabbed the sled, I went as hard as I could halfway. And then I looked around, there was no one else still in the stadium. And the way that worked was like, a win was a win. Didn't matter if you finished in 10 minutes or whatever. It didn't matter as long as you won. So I took, I took a moment to kind of take it in, to realize all the hard work I'd put in and, and then finish it out. So that year was a lot of those type of events. I just felt really good. Rich had some incredible performances right at the end, caught me and took first. And yeah, I mean, obviously that sucked, but I was still proud of my achievement because at that point, right? I'd fought so hard for so long. I'd, I'd won my region every year. I'd won all these other events. I'd won all these things, but I couldn't get back on the podium for multiple years. So to get back on the podium was an amazing, amazing accomplishment. And then the following year, I got back on the podium,

• 54:10Speaker 02

  my kids were able to get on it with me, which was really cool.

• 54:13Jocko Willink?

  And Froning's an animal.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  He's okay.

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  What about your, what about your fuel intake? What are you doing at this point?

• 54:22Speaker 02

  By the way, I love Rich. I was just with him last week at the Rogue Invitational.

• 54:26Jocko Willink?

  No, I actually just met him for the first time at the CrossFit Games. He's just a freaking awesome guy, total stud, super nice and humble and cool. Just a great dude, for sure.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  Dude, 100%. When it comes to fuel, you know, I think that back then, so there's been evolution across it. So in the early days, it was like, dude, just train your face off, go as hard as you can, which, which was obviously what I did. And then you're going to do well. Then it kind of evolved to like, hey, it's all about pacing. You know, I had a coach called Chris Hinshaw, who really taught me about pacing and cadence. And that really helped me with my, my running to get my times down. Then it evolved to like, okay, no longer do you want to smash your face. Pacing is important, but now what are you feeling yourself with and how's your recovery? And so it evolved kind of after my time, but during the time I was training so much, typically three times a day.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  I just kind of ate what I, what I felt like I could. So my morning session would typically be fasted cardio, which I still do today. You know, 30 to an hour of just like hard cardio, just right in the morning, then.

• 55:27Jocko Willink?

  What, what, what's your cardio variance? What do you do?

• 55:29Speaker 02

  Uh, like typically I just like the bike. I like any type of bike. Sometimes I'll run, but sometimes I'll row, but in general, um, I'll, I'll just bike. I just like.

• 55:38Jocko Willink?

  Outdoor bike or like a bike in a.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Like a bicycle, like, like a, like a air bike or even like a concept two type bike, just, just something to get my heart rate elevated. Typically what my mornings look like today are my daughter and I train in the mornings. And so I'll train her and then I'll go ahead and do some cardio and then it'll just kind of jumpstart the day. Nothing crazy. I don't like. Lifting and getting too wild that early. I need to kind of prime, um, prime up. But anyways, back to the day, I would do a midday session, which is like very crossfit. So. I'd have a crew that would just come, we would just create this atmosphere, just this fun atmosphere. And for any, any future crossfitter listening to this. You know, the, the, the money, the, the fame, it doesn't come fast or easy. Surround yourself with like-minded people where you could really enjoy the experience because that's something you could do for a long time.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  And that's what we had in NorCal. It's just a group of just hard chargers who just got after it. So I would do that for like two hours midday and then in the evening I would work.

• 56:33Jocko Willink?

  So hold on. Midday workout is a crossfit-esque workout, you're saying?

• 56:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:39Jocko Willink?

  Meaning like a Metcon, meaning what like, and how's it taking two hours?

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Because typically what we would do, so you have the fasted cardio in the morning and then midday. You would do like a crossfit session. So what we would do is like, we'd warm up with like, uh, we would warm up like with a hard EMOM. Then we would get into some type of strength. Then we would do some type of like. You know, three minutes on, one minute off for 10 rounds. And so by the time you're done with all that, especially a strength session in the middle, you're like two hours and 90 minutes. And then in the evening, I would work stamina work. And this is where like countless times my wife and I would like, she'd come into the garage, be like, Jason, dinner's ready. I'd come in sweating my ass off, just like, you know, and because I would be working stamina. So I'd do like a 20 minute EMOM of strict handstand pushups,

• 57:24Speaker 02

  or a 20 minute EMOM of strict chest to bar pullups, something where I was trying to enhance my gymnastics stamina.

• 57:31Jocko Willink?

  What was your area of weakness?

• 57:33Speaker 02

  That, yeah.

• 57:34Jocko Willink?

  Gymnastics stamina?

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it wasn't just like, so the way I think about it is not just like contractile potential. It's not just like a one time, like pure, like I could do one muscle up. It's how quickly do you fatigue out, right? Like think about the same thing with pushups, like, it's a muscle stamina issue. Like you could perform one really well, but if I asked you to do 100, what happens? So when you start adding in these EMOMs every minute on the minute, you start creating goals based on that minute. And now all of a sudden, you could adjust that minute goal as you improve. So an example, every minute on the minute for 10 minutes, 10 chest to bar pullups. This is one I would do probably once or twice a week. And once you accomplish that, then you could add to 11, maybe 12.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  But now you're using the clock as an indicator of your success instead of just arbitrarily asking questions.

• 58:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so then, so this is your three workouts. Fasted cardio in the morning, kind of a little bit chill, you know, not like relaxing, but it's not, you're not going psycho. A long workout in the midday, that's going to be CrossFit, kind of, kind of based.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 58:44Jocko Willink?

  And, and kind of long for CrossFit, like maybe multiple CrossFit workouts. Like if you think about it, what you just said is kind of multiple CrossFit workouts.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 58:52Jocko Willink?

  And then in the evening, it's this stamina situation that usually is taken around 20 minutes. Okay, so you're freaking tired. And are you doing any, are you doing any stretching? Are you doing the ice bath? Are you doing sauna? Are you doing anything like that?

• 59:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the cold and hot therapy wasn't as popular like now I do, right? So I have a cold plunge, I have a sauna, obviously do a lot of jiu jitsu now. My training is different now, but back then, I wouldn't really expose myself to hot and cold. I wish I had, but I would just like, listen to my body. And I would just say, what does my body need? And if it needed broccoli and rice, great. If it needed just like peanut butter and honey, which is like my go to before workouts, great. But I would just try and be really in tune with what I was feeling and how I want to do. And that's the way that I trained and I would program for myself. So that if I was feeling good, like I'm going for PRs. If I'm not feeling good, like I'm just trying to get through it, have a good session. But I wanted to align my expectation with how I was feeling. It was really important to me.

• 59:50Jocko Willink?

  And where are you getting your protein from?

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Um, you know, obviously.

• 59:54Jocko Willink?

  Are you thinking about it? Is it a big deal? Are you like, did you ever count like macros?

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, so over the, over my span of career, I've done like hardcore zone. I've done full paleo, I've done full carnivore. I've tried every nutritional plan you could think of. Um, but what I ended up coming down to is like, I think about like a discipline bucket. I only have so much discipline in my bucket. I was using it very, very, very for all my training, my business, my family. I was really using a lot of discipline. When it came to food, I was just fueling my body with what felt right.

• 1:00:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and when you're working out that freaking hard, I mean, you can pretty much eat whatever you want. Doesn't really matter.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Jocko Willink?

  As long as you're getting enough protein.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  That's right. And, and so I, you know, I was fortunate that Ashley would always have great meals at home. I'd always have access to protein, et cetera. But I think at the end of the day, it's like, you know, for me, like nutrition could have been optimized for inflammation, if I could look back on it. Because you know, what you're trying to get down to is, is how fast I can recover. So if I was able to recover faster through, you know, anti-inflammatory type foods or not, you know, if I have a slight allergy to gluten or dairy, I just didn't even think about those things. I didn't care. I should have cared.

• 1:01:08Jocko Willink?

  So 2014 is your last, uh, is that the last time you did the individual competition of CrossFit?

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:01:17Jocko Willink?

  And how'd you feel that year? Cause you got third place.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  I felt great.

• 1:01:19Jocko Willink?

  That's a good run.

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  Oh, it was a great run. So every year my wife and I would have a conversation and we'd say, you know, hey, what are we doing this year? Cause it wasn't just me. She made just as many sacrifices as I did, if not more. And so the way that my season ended up being was it was a lot from 2011 till 2016, 15. Like I competed year round. The reason why is that I was invited to compete for Team USA. So what would happen is you'd have an online open, which is like, everybody does it. You have to perform. Then from there you go to regionals. Then from your region, you go to the games and then if you perform well enough at the games, you get invited to go represent your country. And I did that for multiple years in a row. So it was a lot on the family.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  And you know, for me, I remember specific times where like there were sacrifices that were made, you know, we, we would, we'd go to parties and something. I would be like, Ashley, I gotta go home. Like I gotta go sleep and that, that is a drain on, on, on our relationship. And so that year in 2000, going into 2014, we had our talk, like after the games, we'd always go and like go on a vacation. We just sat down. We're like, hey, where are we at this year? She's like, Jay, I just can't do it anymore. Like, so from 2012, she'd be like, ah, I got a little bit more in me. 13, she's like, ah, I got a little bit more in me, but not much. 14, she's like, dude, I, I can't do it anymore. And at that point, you know, like I never got into this for money, fame, or whatever. My relationship to my wife is the most important thing. And so I chose to go team the following year. And the team was great.

• 1:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yep. And so to talk about that team. Well, first of all, you got third place in 2014. And I mean, that's freaking badass. Like be, just being on the podium against the best people in the world is just insane.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, that was a good year. So I won my region. So I did well in the open. I won my region, took third at the games. And then our team ended up winning for Team USA. So that was like a good run. And then the following year I ended up going team. Our team was just absolutely killing it. We had the best team. It was incredible. We won our region. We won everything. It was great. And then we get to the games and. We're like multiple days into the games and we're doing really well. We're up by hundreds of points. It looks like we're the, you know, it looks like we're the winner and one of our teammates tore ACL. And I did not do a good job detaching, which we could talk about that from a leadership perspective. And there's some things I wish I had done differently at that moment, but I was so invested into winning. I was just, I was emotional. I was, my ego was in the way. It was just all kinds of stuff.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  She tears her ACL and we end up taking 10th that year because we just couldn't continue competing. That was, that was, that was heartbreaking for everybody.

• 1:03:51Jocko Willink?

  So how did your emotion and your ego play into that?

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  So, you know, we're, we're on the field and we're up by, like I said, hundreds of points. Miranda's doing what they, if I'm not mistaken, it was a power clean. And she catches it a little bit off and her knee buckles and they diagnosed her with a torn ACL like immediately. And at the time, like you had just spent so much time and effort for this moment.

• 1:04:17Jocko Willink?

  And victory's right over there.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  And victory's right there. And like, it was very hard for me not to be like, well, we could compete with five people. Still put her in, you know, wrap it up. Let's go. Like I, I was just thinking like, how can I still have her on our team? How can we still win? Cause that was the goal. Like, and I just had blinders on, you know, I just, I was so competitive. I am a, I'm a pretty competitive person and I couldn't, I couldn't detach from my perspective. My perspective was dude, I came here to win. I didn't come here for second. I came here to win. And every year at the games, that was my perspective. Cause I think that's important as a competitor. And her perspective was probably, dude, I just tore my ACL. I need surgery, all this stuff. And I, I probably wasn't a great friend then, right? Um, you know, obviously my ego got in the way. Cause I felt like we were the best team and obviously that happened.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  And then I was emotional and you know, I just had such a tight relationship with the CrossFit HQ team that it allowed me just access that maybe other athletes wouldn't have had. And you know, I just, I wish I, I had handled that situation differently. But as a competitor, all I want to do is win. And looking back on it, what I needed to do from a leadership role, cause I was playing a leadership role on that team. Is like, just take a step back, just take a deep breath and be like, dude, you know, like, am I detaching from my ego, my emotion, my perspective? And I wasn't. I didn't even know about that theory back then, but looking back on it now.

• 1:05:37Jocko Willink?

  What would you have done? What would the call have been? Like, okay, hey, we're out. Like.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  The call would have been, um, I would have regrouped us. I would have sat down and said, "Okay, what are our options?" We would have been told our options and we would have done the best we could, given our options and not have been emotional about it. Not have tried to call Dave Casher 40 times, not have tried to, you know, you know, change the rules for us or whatever.

• 1:06:01Jocko Willink?

  So you just freaked out?

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  And, and a lot of that had to do with just like the current, it was just, it was, looking back on it, it's funny how your, how your perspective shifts as you get older. And, but that, that was a defining moment. That really was. And it was a defining moment for Miranda because she went on to go create a beautiful business. Had we have won, I don't know if she would have started that. And secondly, had we had won, we would have probably started training for 2016, hard. And that was when Ava got diagnosed. So I would have been out anyways. So it's, it's a very interesting, um, that, I mean, it's just, yeah.

• 1:06:43Jocko Willink?

  What business did Miranda go into?

• 1:06:45Speaker 02

  She started a company called Street Parking, which is, um, for, you know, at, at home garage jammers. Um, primarily she, a lot of her base is with women and she's, she's just done amazing.

• 1:06:57Jocko Willink?

  And what, where do people find that? If they want to check out the Street Parking? Is it streetparking.com or something?

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  Uh, I believe so. But you can just look up.

• 1:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Just look up Miranda Street Parking.

• 1:07:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think her IG is Fearless Miranda.

• 1:07:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Um, yeah, you just mentioned 2016. You know, this is kind of what I opened the book with and, uh, or opened the podcast with, and it's what the book opens with. I, I got a little excerpt here. I want to read from the book. Um, you're talking about the fact that you're tracking, you know, Ava every day. You're kind of watching and, and paying so much attention to her health and her, and her kind of vital signs and all that stuff. And you say this. Um, one day we saw shift. We noticed a very subtle change in Ava's vital signs and without hesitation called the doctrine. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that this was not the good kind of shift. What had started very subtly turned into a sharp, severe drop in blood pressure. With a quick turn of his head, the doctor momentarily shifted

• 1:07:52Jocko Willink?

  his attention from Ava and looked at us. Even before his spoke, he spoke, his eyes made clear to us the seriousness of the situation. His words were clear and direct. If Ava's blood pressure doesn't come up in the next two minutes, I want to prepare you for what will happen. I will call a rapid response team. We will need to act without interference. It will be a lot of people. I gripped Ashley's hand firmly. Two minutes later, he called in the rapid response team and 20 emergency medical clinicians rushed into the room. I've never been more frightened in my life. The lead doctor to whom I will forever be grateful spoke with clear yet undeniable urgent direction to the entire team. Each member had a specific responsibility. It was the most inspiring expression of teamwork

• 1:08:36Jocko Willink?

  I have ever seen. Ashley and I could only stand back and watch. We held our breaths, not speaking a word. It was obvious that our daughter's life was not in our hands, but theirs. We quite, we quite simply, after all our watching and reading and waiting, had no control. After what seemed like a lifetime of intense discussion, followed by quick action infusion and medication, the tone changed. Ava was rolled out of the room and taken to the ICU, but the frantic pace had noticeably slowed. The tone went from life and death to one of optimistic concern. I remember looking at Ashley as we went upstairs, asking, did you hear how their voices changed? She responded, yes,

• 1:09:16Jocko Willink?

  definitely. The whole situation only lasted 10 minutes, but in that 10 minutes, we experienced nearly every human emotion possible.

• 1:09:28Jocko Willink?

  That to me, you know, when I read that, I was, it's emblematic of what you're going through as a dad, the whole freaking time.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's like one moment, but there's also weeks that are like that. There's also 20 seconds that are like that, like it's a nightmare.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's tough, you know, because when you read that, it just brings me back to that exact same situation, but it's, the greatest gift the CrossFit Games ever gave me was the ability to create a mindset where I had to go find a coach to learn how to use positive self-talk, to learn how to understand what's in my control versus out of my control. And those were skills that transferred, not only on the field, but in real life. And I'm very grateful for the CrossFit Games for that. And the positive self-talk thing is just so important. And in this particular case, like it was just so heavy. It was so heavy. It was so bad. It was, it was just, it was just a lot, you know? We had, my wife and I spent months and months and months in the hospital.

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  And, you know, we, we've, we've gone through our fair share of not that good of times. That was, that was the worst. That was the worst because it was like really clear to me that like something was really, really wrong. And all I could grasp onto was the lessons that I had learned through overcoming adversity in the gym, which I think why everybody should work out. And then also on the competition floor, which was you gotta find the small nuggets. You gotta find something to hold on to and you gotta understand what's in your control. What was in my control at that moment was obviously supporting my wife and supporting my daughter the best I could. But a lot of it was out of my control and I can't focus on that. I need to focus on the, the positive, which was the, the tone change. And we decided to connect on that, you know, Ash and I, we connected on that and it, it helped us.

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  And we ended up spending, spending, you know, some time in the ICU and it wasn't ideal.

• 1:11:16Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:11:18Jocko Willink?

  When Ava gets diagnosed, how long was it from, hey, we're 99% sure that she has leukemia? To like, she's getting, and did she get both chemo and radiation treatments?

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, so not radiation. By the way, I should acknowledge the fact that Ava is now five years out of treatment. So she's cancer free. I just, for anybody listening, like, oh, what's happened?

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  When she was diagnosed that night, they knew it was 100%, right? But I'm trying to grasp onto whatever I can, right? So I'm like, are you sure? She's like, I'm 99.9% sure. I'm like, are you sure though? Like, of course she's sure. They end up doing a bunch of blood tests, etc. So the way that works with leukemia is for women, for girls, it's a two and a half year treatment plan. For boys, it's a three year treatment plan because statistically, the leukemia comes back in the testicle. And so for two and a half years, you go through this treatment plan. And it definitely is like, it's pretty aggressive during the phases, right?

• 1:12:13Jocko Willink?

  And it's chemo?

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  So she's taking medicine that's going to like, hurt her to the point where she's barely getting by to try and kill the cancer? And it's just a nightmare for you?

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And luckily, you know, there's different amino therapies and different things that are coming out, which we try and stay up on. But yeah, she was, she was given a lot of chemotherapy, a lot. And she was given a lot of steroids and the steroids were the worst part, for sure.

• 1:12:41Jocko Willink?

  How come?

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  Dude, it just made her a different girl, you know, like, I truly feel at this moment in time, like where I'm sitting right now, I feel more blessed than ever before. I just, I'm so blessed because our business got crumbled, crippled by COVID and now we're out. And Ava and our family is just thriving. They're, they're, they're just amazing. And during that time of steroids, it was just very difficult, you know, to have your kid tell you, like, speak to you in such a way that like, just broke my heart, man, you know? And it was, it was a lot. It was a lot to overcome, but you know, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

• 1:13:16Jocko Willink?

  So were they giving them, were they giving her steroids? Or do they give people in the situation steroids because they're taking such damage from the chemo that they have to try and build them back up type thing?

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's part of it, you know? And then all of a sudden they have something called moon face where like their face looks like absurdly wide. Obviously they lose their hair, which by the way, you know, it's interesting. When Ava first lost her hair, it was, it was more traumatic, I think, for us than it was for her. Cause she was, she was four turning five. So she was, in my opinion, like, and I wrote this in the book. I believed that if someone was going to be diagnosed leukemia, I don't ever wish it on anybody, but for us, we were as well prepared as we could have been. We were financially in a good position, fitness was on point, and we had a family support system that was just unparalleled, unmatched. And, you know, when it, when it came to the age, it was a good age because Abe was able to understand a little bit what was going on, but not understand fully the gravity.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  But it reinforced how good humans are, man. When you would walk around with a kid that's bald, who people look at them like, oh, that kid has cancer, like they're sick. You, you saw a side of humanity that was, that was pretty magical. I mean, the things that people did for us were, were very touching.

• 1:14:26Jocko Willink?

  Now, when you're on this two and a half year cycle, it's not the whole time, right? You're doing cycles, like you'll do six weeks of chemo where you're getting crushed, or is it the whole time?

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  It's basically the whole time. So there's different, there's different flows, like there's like induction phase and, and this phase and that phase. And there's different types of chemo. It's like one was called the red devil and you knew that when that was going to come up, it was going to be nasty.

• 1:14:48Jocko Willink?

  And you do it multiple times, red devil?

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  Well, the red devil, I think only happened once, but like Vin Christine, for example, is a very popular chemotherapy.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Would you say Vin Christine?

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would happen many times. The reason why it's a, the, the reason why chemotherapy is, is the reason why kids get so sick. So when you look up the statistics of ALL leukemia, statistically, we were in a pretty good spot. Meaning like, if you look at it, the, the survival rate is pretty high. As long as you pay attention as a parent, as long as you're on point, you know, like I was advocating for my daughter every single day. Because we were her, we, that was in my control, right? What was in my control is advocating. But the reason why we would be in and out of the hospital so much is that when you look at her blood markers, if her ANC dropped below a certain amount, it meant, it meant that she was more susceptible to getting sick.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  And so as soon as her blood markers dropped below 500, you had to be in the hospital until they got out of that. Because if they, especially if they trigger a fever, you had to go in immediately. Because your body was fighting something and it might take you a week to get out, might take you a day, might take you a month. It just depended. So that's why I'm very grateful for our family because they were, they stepped up big time and watched our son.

• 1:15:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, there's an awesome section of the book where you talk about basically as soon as this happens, you call your team together and you just say, I'm, I'm gonna take care of my daughter and you guys got it. And you call your dad and like, hey, I'm gonna take care of my daughter. And he's like, well, we got this. And basically the support that you're talking about was coming from both your work relationships that you had and your family relationships. And you were able to really just like focus on taking care of Ava. That's a huge piece and it's a beautiful part of the book for sure.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's why I think people need to work hard, right? They need to work hard on their relationships, you need to focus on them, they need to work hard at their work to build a hedge, to become so successful, so, you know, important to the company that, that they want to help you in return. And, and obviously with your, your family, just holding strong relationships and, and having your fitness on point. You know, your fitness has to be there. Every day when we were in the hospital, I'd go to the parking garage, I'd bring my truck out there and I'd put a bunch of weights and I'd hit a hard workout. I had to stay within six minutes of the, the room. So if I was running, the furthest I was able to get, okay, like maybe like seven minutes. So the first I was able to get is a mile, I would tell myself. Because when the doctors were doing their rounds, I had to get back in time to be able to talk to the doctor. But I would go out to the garage,

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  the parking garage, I'd come back with just energy enthusiasm. And that's what workouts do. And if you're not training right now, you gotta start training, man, because you never know when life's gonna throw you a curve ball. And the best thing you do is, is be as fit as possible and work on these other areas. And I was very grateful at the time. The team we had then and the team we have now, I'm blessed to have, because I just wrote an email and say, hey, man, I'm out. I don't know if it's gonna be for a day, a week, a month, a year, but this is my only priority. That's it. And so I ended up deep diving into cancer research, leukemia research. I wanted to try and take everything that was in my control and try and focus on it.

• 1:17:50Jocko Willink?

  How, how, how long were the chunks of time that Ava would spend in the hospital?

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  I mean, it, it varied from two days to a week to a month. And we spent birthdays, Valentine's, I mean, I remember one time my, my wife and I celebrated Valentine's Day in the hospital. It just, it just varied. And then we ended up going back for some stuff. They thought she relapsed. I mean, it's just, it's just a lot. Yeah, it just varied.

• 1:18:14Jocko Willink?

  This is also the time when you started jujitsu, is that right?

• 1:18:17Speaker 02

  So, yeah, which, so when, when I, so when I found out Ava was sick, I retired from the sport of CrossFit because what I said was like, you know, your business, your family and your fitness. For me, fitness took on a different lens. I was no longer trying to be the fittest on earth. I was trying to just use fitness as a way to clear my mind. And I found jujitsu. I used to sublease some space to a jujitsu school and I loved it. It was like human chess. I would watch it. I'd be like, dude, this is badass. I love it. But I couldn't do it because I didn't want to get injured for CrossFit. I did like a one private at one time. And so when Ava got sick, I said, I need to find something to clear my mind. I need to find something to, to give me an hour where I just, this is like months after she'd been sick.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  And I found jujitsu and, you know, I created certain protocols around it where, you know, I was, I still had access to my phone. I was still doing this, this, this, this, this. But long story short, I started off with privates and then I ended up at a place called Heroes, which is in San Jose. And then from there I just moved on. And I was like, I've been doing jujitsu now for like seven years and I absolutely, absolutely find it as a critical component in my life.

• 1:19:22Jocko Willink?

  Were you surprised the first time you got choked out or submitted and arm locked? Were you surprised at all or did you kind of accept that that's the way things were?

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  Um, I accepted, but you know, we were talking about this a little bit off air. I, I think that especially coming from a CrossFit background, I, I didn't realize my own strength. I didn't realize my own ego. And I probably wasn't a great training partner. I probably wasn't. And my advice to my earlier self or anybody who is in fitness and wants to try jujitsu is like, maybe start with some privates, start with some fundamentals. And just like walk in the door and say, my goal is to be a good training partner today. And that's my goal. Because what will happen is if you're new and someone feels your strength, they're going to ramp it up. Then you're going to get scared and you're going to ramp it up. And then it just turns into this like very non beneficial training session.

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, things can escalate quickly.

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  Very quickly.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  Especially in the white belt world, which is when you begin jujitsu. You know, if, even when someone's a blue belt, they can still ramp it up for sure, but they're going to be at least a little bit more composed. But two white belts going crazy is, I think I, I usually say like the first year, your chances of getting hurt in the first year are 10 times greater than in your. Probably fourth year, you know, your second year probably goes down to like 50% and then in the third year, now you're in a pretty good spot and like, I mean, once you've been training for, I don't know, what do you think, seven, eight years, like, you shouldn't be getting hurt. You shouldn't be getting hurt. Like, look, can shit happen? Yep. You can slip and you can get twisted or you do something that someone didn't expect. Like, you can definitely get hurt. It's

• 1:20:57Jocko Willink?

  a freaking contact sport, but the early days, the white belt warriors and having someone like you're freaking explosive ass freaking getting crazy, that's definitely a good, a good time to get hurt. And so to your point, if people know that, they're gonna be, you're not being a good training partner. And just like anything else in life, you're, you're part of a team and you're, you're gonna be able to improve because the people that you work with, not working against them. So being a good training partner, I love the idea of putting that as the primary goal. I didn't know what you were gonna say when you were saying that, like, hey, walk in the gym and like, I thought you were gonna say, hey, is to use technique or is to learn the technique. This

• 1:21:41Jocko Willink?

  is actually the best priority I've heard. Your priority, you go into a gym for the first time is be a good training partner. That should be your goal. And that's a really good place to start. And that means not trying to not tap out. That means not trying to rip people's arms off. That means not worrying about any of that stuff. Cause, man, you get the escalation of white belt warriors, bro, you got problems.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just, I think I summarized it like that for myself because coming from a CrossFit background, I get a lot of attention from people who want to try Jiu Jitsu. And I just try to remind them, like, dude, your goal, just be a good training partner. Because if you just say that, what does that mean? It means focus on the fundamentals, focus on technique, focus on trying to give and receive and, and especially when it comes to training with other belt levels and maybe opposite sex. Like, if you're really focused on being a good training partner, I think only good things will happen in the future because it also allows you to train with everybody in the room and not have people not want to train with you because you're not a good training partner. And I think that's really important. It's to create a culture of one that we're all trying to rise each other up. I'm not trying to kill you.

• 1:22:48Jocko Willink?

  And there's a, there's like a, a counterpoint which people might throw out, which is like, well, if it doesn't work, you know, if I'm not, I want to give them a realistic training. So if I'm not going as freaking hard as I can, then that's not realistic training. Here's the deal. The people, the people are learning jujitsu. They're not in a, in a street fight. And as you get better, you definitely escalate. I mean, if I'm trying to arm lock Echo, Echo is going to give me 100% resistance. So I can't arm lock him. And if I don't do it correctly, it's not going to work. That's what we want. But this isn't like, this is after years and years of training. This is after making sure that my technique is good and that his technique to escape is good.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:23:28Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, it's definitely, that's probably the, the biggest thing to watch out for.

• 1:23:32Speaker 02

  Which means though, that you guys are good training partners.

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:23:35Speaker 02

  So for example, like if we're rolling, right? We, if I'm rolling at my current level today, like it's much different than it was before. But if, if you and I are trying, or let's just say you two are trying to roll together, like you are being a good training partner by putting on the, the pressure and he's been a good training partner by not letting you.

• 1:23:52Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  Because in, you know what I mean? Cause if you want to compete in the future, people aren't just going to give up your arm. So I think as long as you create that as like the overall theme, that's something I've been reflecting on a lot is like, how can I bring more value to you and you in turn are going to bring more value to me?

• 1:24:07Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yeah. And you really shouldn't be hurting your training partners. And if your training partner doesn't tap, it's one thing to be like, well, you know, Echo should have tapped. That's why he's hurt. It's like, no, actually that's wrong. If Echo's not tapping because he's feeling stubborn or he doesn't want to tap or his ego is in the way, I need to support Nate my ego and be like, all right, I, I, I'm not going to hurt my freaking training partner. And I'm going to let this go and we'll carry on.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:24:33Jocko Willink?

  And let's face it, we all know.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 1:24:36Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean though? Like when you got caught, when you get caught, you're like,

• 1:24:39Speaker 02

  we know.

• 1:24:39Jocko Willink?

  Hey, you know?

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  Have you ever had one of those situations where you're rolling? I was, I was, I was overseas somewhere and I, I dropped it in a gym and I was having some good rolls, right? And I get this guy into a good spot and he's a higher belt than me and I get him in a good spot. And he's like, okay, let me tell you what to do from here.

• 1:24:56Jocko Willink?

  Classic.

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I'm like, dude, I'm like, I'm like, I'm right about to bring it on.

• 1:25:02Jocko Willink?

  That's a classic meme in jujitsu. That's a very common theme in jujitsu. It's like you get there and you're about to choke him. They're like, you know what you want to do here is you want to make you, you want to put your elbow a little bit there? Yep. There you go. And then they tap, they go, good job. Yeah. I'm glad I could teach you there. Yeah, that's a very common thing.

• 1:25:19Speaker 02

  But man, the lessons learned from jiu jitsu, like if you're listening to this podcast, you probably already know about jiu jitsu because these guys talk about it all the time. But I'm telling you, as a guy who dedicated his life to being the fittest on earth for almost a decade, pivoting into jiu jitsu has been incredible because something for me is every time I train, uh, when I'm thinking about like a class, when I coach classes, it's can people get a good workout? Can people, um, learn something new and have a great time like, and it probably it's in this order. They need to have a great time because if not have a great time, they're not going to come back. They need to go ahead and have a great workout, which is pretty straightforward and they need to learn something, even something very basic. But when in jiu jitsu, it unlocks the brain like earlier on in CrossFit did for me. Like I strived for years to hit my 300 pound

• 1:26:02Speaker 02

  snatch or my whatever, and I would constantly be refining the techniques. But eventually you're making 1% gains here and there, or even no gains. Like for me, I'm probably never going to hit a PR again on an Olympic lift. And that's okay. Because in jiu jitsu, I could unlock my brain, learn something new almost every single day, learn new threads, new, new ways to get into different things. And so it's, it's connecting me in three ways. I have a hell of a time doing it. I get to get in a good workout, which I also think you should be doing CrossFit and strength and conditioning, which is we could talk about. And then I learn something new every time I'm on the mats.

• 1:26:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, I, I go into that piece. Number one, yeah. I mean, Dean Lister will teach, uh, an arm lock.

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  He's so funny.

• 1:26:45Jocko Willink?

  He taught me, he'll teach, he could teach me an arm lock this afternoon, uh, an arm lock, like from the mounted position, like a, and he, and I'll learn something. And I'll be like, dude, why don't you show me that? He's like, I've showed you that a thousand times, but you know, like you're not ready to learn. Um, the, when you said you should do strength and conditioning and jiu jitsu, this is something I used to get asked a lot, like almost people, almost with a little bit of disbelief, like, but do you, you still work out even when, or do you work out on the same days you do jiu jitsu? I believe that's a little bit of the magic, honestly. I think that's a little bit of the magic of being.

• 1:27:20Jocko Willink?

  Being able to limit the injuries because I think if you if you work out all the time like I never stopped working out. I never stopped working out at all. I always worked out and did jujitsu. Personally, I like to work out before I do jujitsu. I think that's my that's my preference. Everyone some people might have different preferences. That's my preference. I feel like I'm a little bit more fatigued when I go to the gym. I'd rather be fatigued when I'm doing jujitsu. I also feel like I've, you know, I'm sore, but I'm like, I've moved my body already. I've moved my body through space.

• 1:27:51Jocko Willink?

  So I feel like a little bit warmed up. You know, I might I might be tired. I might have DOMS, right? There's nothing worse than DOMS. Um, you know, when you're you can't even getting up and down off the mat. You got DOMS. That's that's painful, but I'd rather be there. Then get done with a hard jujitsu training and then go and try and work out. But you were saying that strength and conditioning and jujitsu is a good combination.

• 1:28:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, so you know, it's funny. The first, I don't know. I think it was the first time I met you. I finished rolling. I'm like, hey, dude, so Jocko, let me ask you a question. Do you train like, do you do like CrossFit stuff, strength and conditioning stuff and jujitsu on this? And you said to me, you're like, yes, but not the same intensity as you.

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  And I walked away, I was like, not the same intensity as me.

• 1:28:38Speaker 02

  Like, I'm like thinking to myself, like, okay, what did, how am I going to, you know? And so the way I've kind of like taken what you said and his idea of RPE.

• 1:28:48Jocko Willink?

  Well, just real quick, I meant that when I do jujitsu, I'm not doing it at the same intensity as you. When you're doing jujitsu, like even as a purple belt, you have more white belt than you than you have black belt at this time. So you're when you train, it's a much harder workout for you than it is for me. And look, and and you've seen me train, you have many, you see me train a thousand times. I mean, when I'm done training, I'm dripping in sweat.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm very tired. I don't know how many calories or whatever I would burn, but it's a hard training session. I am definitely tired. I can just about guarantee I'm not as tired as you would be after, you know, a session because I am going to be using more technique. I'm going to be in positions where I can relax more. I'm going to be in spots where I know how to avoid needing to put a lot of strength into a move. So, yeah, I definitely trained jujitsu, but I mean, I like at that time I only watched you. But then like I trained with you in in at camp in Maine and I'm like, yeah. You know, we get done, you're obviously in better shape and stronger and faster than I am, but you're also breathing harder at the end of a five minute round. Why? Because you're working harder

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  because I have better technique in jujitsu. Just like if we did when you and I were like sprinting, you're stronger faster than me. I you're beating me and I'm still breathing harder than you. That's the way it works. So yeah, just to clarify that when when you're the better you get at jujitsu.

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  And that's why the strength conditioning is so important, but I'll only finish your thought there.

• 1:30:21Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say this, I with MMA fighters, when I was training a lot of MMA fighters, I was always

• 1:30:28Jocko Willink?

  encouraging them to train jujitsu every single day. And some of them got it, some of them didn't. The guys that got it were the guys that realized that a training session in jujitsu doesn't have to feel like you just did, you know, a Fran pyramid, right? It should, as a matter of fact, if you do it right, it actually kind of shouldn't feel like that. Are there days when you're getting ready for ADCC? And I used to train Dean for ADCC, he'd feel worse than a Fran ladder. He'd feel terrible, like we'd completely deplete all of his energy. That's that's and same with MMA fighters. But you should be able to do jujitsu where it's almost

• 1:31:10Jocko Willink?

  no impact on on your metabolic capacity 15 minutes later. Where you're like, oh, if I had still had to do something, like if I got done doing a Fran ladder, right? And then someone said, hey, now we want you to do whatever, some, some, we want your buddy Kerry Echo up this hill, I'd be like, damn it. But if I got done rolling on a normal day, now look, if it's a Sunday open mat and all my psycho friends are there and it's like a bloodbath, cool, I might be a little bit tired. But on a normal jujitsu day, when I got done training jujitsu last night, if someone's like, hey, you got a buddy Kerry Echo up this hill, I'd be like, cool, it's gonna suck, but it wouldn't suck because of jujitsu at all. It would just suck because Echo is heavy and that's a big hill type thing.

• 1:31:54Jocko Willink?

  So you should be able to train jujitsu in a way where it's it's not negatively impacting your your strength and conditioning kind of at all, kind of at all. Now, look, like I said, are there times if you're competing? When I competed all the time in jiu jitsu, it was like, we trained hard where you're leaving tired.

• 1:32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Jocko Willink?

  You're leaving, you're, you're working really, really hard. That's part of it too. But a normal, you should be able to supplement your life with jiu jitsu at a level where it's not making you excessively fatigued for everything else that you're doing in your life.

• 1:32:31Speaker 02

  Well, and I had to take that to heart, right? So what I did is I went home and I said to myself, how did I take what you said to me? And I didn't take that as like, you know, Jocko doesn't train hard. I took it as maybe I need to regulate my intensity on the mats and in the gym better. So I thought about RPE, rate of perceived exertion. If I'm hitting a 10 every time I roll jiu jitsu, and then I'm trying to hit a 10 every time I'm doing CrossFit, I'm just too fatigued. It's too much. I need to back that off. But you brought up a really good point. I think this is, this is something I think we need to talk about more in jiu jitsu. So I've been doing it for seven years. I feel like at this point, I've been exposed to a lot of the best guys in the world. Not all of them, but some of them. And when I look at them, they're, they're, they're, they're so in shape, right?

• 1:33:13Speaker 02

  Like, I mean, you look at the, all the top guys, right? Andre, like this last fight between Andre and Gordon, right? You look at the two of them, they're just monsters. And they are doing a lot of strength and conditioning, I think, outside of the mats. But I bring up this question of like, if you're really good in your gym and you're one of the best guys,

• 1:33:31Speaker 02

  how often, if ever, do you redline? And how often should you be redlining? And I think that's where off the mats comes into play. So meaning, if you're like really technically sound, like you, the better you get at jiu jitsu, the worse it allows you to be at your strength conditioning because you're so technically advanced. And that's cool. And that's great. Until you meet someone who has the same technical advantage, then it goes down to your strength conditioning. So my recommendation for, for jiu jitsu and CrossFit is to do both, right? So I do it almost every day, and then I add in jiu jitsu three times a week. And the reason why I think that is so important.

• 1:34:07Jocko Willink?

  Rookie numbers.

• 1:34:10Speaker 02

  But it brings up this really valid point that like if I could take you off the mat and match exceed your heart rates that you're getting on the mats, add in some strength work, add in some stamina work. Now I could redline you on an air bike or hill sprints and that is going to only increase your ability to perform when you meet someone on the mats like one day,

• 1:34:31Jocko Willink?

  right? Hundred percent. I had a guy one time, I called him a submission, tapped him and he says,

• 1:34:39Jocko Willink?

  "You never would have got that on me if you weren't so strong."

• 1:34:41Speaker 02

  Oh dude.

• 1:34:42Jocko Willink?

  And I said, "That's why I lift mother..."

• 1:34:47Jocko Willink?

  Because that's the truth, you know, like it's a hundred percent. You're going to, you want to be in, in good shape. The other thing is you're gonna want to do workouts because they will work out parts of your body that you don't use regularly in jujitsu. Like if you're doing gi jujitsu, like your grip's going to be good, right? So you're going to get a good, you probably don't need any extra grip work. But how often do you get this particular like sweep where you've got to put pressure with your, with your, uh, your, your right leg a little bit and you're going to pull with your whatever muscle and it's sort of more like a clean, right? Even though you're on the floor and you're grabbing a guy and you're pulling him, that's like a

• 1:35:30Jocko Willink?

  clean that you just did. Well, you, you don't do heavy cleans on the mat. You don't get to do that movement 28 times. So when you get to do it in the gym, you're like boom, oh, I got some, I'm going to build up my strength. So when I do do that, execute that movement on the mats, it's going to be good.

• 1:35:45Speaker 02

  You know, I've been, um, training some of the guys at Kaioterra's for a while and Mason Fowler actually has a fight coming up, depending on when this is released with Gordon Ryan. That's a big, it's going to be a cool fight, right? It's in December. It's Gordon, it's a UFC Fight Pass, Gordon Ryan and Mason Fowler. And Mason told me something last week. He's like, hey, man, I'm just letting you know since we started training there, this is it's been probably been like two years. He's like, I haven't had to have the same major injuries I was worried about before. Because you've been helping me strengthen all these areas. And I think there's like, it's counterintuitive, right? I've heard people say, oh, I tore my ACL. I never am on a squat again. It's like, well, what if life demands you have to squat? What if you want to sit on a toilet and get back up again? There's just this, it's so counterintuitive to say I injured.

• 1:36:27Speaker 02

  Now I'm going to never use it again. Instead, let's spend time strengthening up the muscle groups to support that joint. So you could be better prepared outside the gym. And ultimately, that's where my journey has led me to over all these years. Like, what can I do in the gym to help me perform on the mats and outside the gym?

• 1:36:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, so everybody train jiu jitsu and workout. That's, that's the basic concept. Echo Charles, you support this protocol?

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. I do.

• 1:36:54Jocko Willink?

  You put, you, you put more focus on, you're very good at resting.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  He's on bodybuilding. I monitor the rest.

• 1:37:03Jocko Willink?

  You definitely, no, no, like legitimately, I'll say like, hey, are you training tomorrow? And you'll be like, no, I, I already lifted or something like that. You say that to me. And, and that's because you don't, you are focused on making sure you get to recover from your workouts.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, Echo's pretty jacked.

• 1:37:18Jocko Willink?

  Have you, when, back in the day when you were competing?

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:21Jocko Willink?

  Would you, were you following the same protocol?

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Okay, so not to get into a whole long thing. So, uh, there, there, there are many like little approaches and you can focus on this, focus on that or whatever. And if I want to do a comparison to you, you're, it seems like it anyway. It seems like your approach to like working out, fitness, capability, all that stuff. It was like anywhere, anytime I'm ready to go, kind of a thing. I don't care if I'm level 10 ready, or level nine, level eight, but I will be ready. Mine was a little bit more towards the other side of the spectrum where it's like.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  I want to be level nine and 10 ready and if I'm not, I gotta, I gotta basically be in a situation to be level nine and 10 ready to, to do whatever it is.

• 1:38:04Jocko Willink?

  Is this even to train jujitsu?

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  To, no, but it's all, it's all part of the, the whole training system. See what I'm saying? So, okay, so you know how you'll be like, yeah, if I'm not feeling good, I'll still go train and get the best I can.

• 1:38:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  And I'm like, hey, if I'm not feeling good, let me rest. So when I go train, I can get the most out of a level 10 workout. You see what I'm saying? Rather than, you know, a level eight kind of workout or level seven, six.

• 1:38:30Jocko Willink?

  Cause you feel the same way as I do, like jujitsu shouldn't impact where you're like, well, I, I did jujitsu today. I can't, I'm not gonna squat because I did jujitsu. Or I, or I squatted, so now I can't do jujitsu.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Right, right. So, and it's gonna depend on the day that you ask me that or whatever. So it could be if I'm focusing on like the, the lifting part of it. Or it'd be like, hey, I don't have that planned for the workout today. So it's a little bit mentally, since my approach is like, okay, this is my rest. I'm focusing on my rest, kind of a thing. Even the, do I need the rest in that specific day? Is that gonna throw off the whole thing? Probably not. But in a way, I guess you could look at it as I've committed to the, the rest.

• 1:39:07Jocko Willink?

  You seem strongly committed to rest sometimes.

• 1:39:12Speaker 02

  That's the best way. I've never heard anybody refer to like, hey, I made a commitment. I've committed, I've committed to rest.

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  I say recovery, but yeah, whatever, whatever you gotta, you gotta go. But, but that is a different approach is what I'm saying. So like, and I've always been like this and for better or worse, like where if, if I'm like, hey, I'm like really tired right now. And I know I have to go level 10 in this workout, like let me, I'll do this workout tomorrow. Cause I'll get, I can get level 10 tomorrow. Today I'm only gonna get like a six. It'll be kind of like a wasted workout. Because if I do the workout right now, tomorrow's another day, given the workout I have today.

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you and I talked about this too, like you shouldn't dread your workouts.

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And a lot has changed since we had that talk, to be honest with you. And as you get older. Because yeah, we were talking, we were talking at, at camp, just about a bunch of stuff. And he, he was like, hey, your workout shouldn't stress you out. And my workouts kind of stressed me out a little bit because of that reason too, because it's like.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  There's certain, I would say, pretty, pretty much every workout, I have to go like PR level attempts, you know, and I'm not saying one rep max necessarily, but if I'm doing like a set of fifteen, if I'm doing five sets of fifteen, that first set, like if I don't get my standard or a PR, it's like I've literally felt a loss that day and to the point where it kind of does stress me out. Like if I'm like, shit, did I drink enough water before this workout? I better drink some more water, you know, like, and it does actually stress me out. It doesn't give me like anxiety level stress or nothing, but it's like, it is like an added like enemy in the room kind of a thing. And he was like, Jason was like, hey, they shouldn't stress you out. You should just go in there like benefiting essentially

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  the workout for the sake of the workout. Like a workout benefits you regardless of the numbers you put up or didn't put up kind of a thing. And I was like, huh, that's a good way to approach it. Although when you're younger, those things kind of, I think, mean more to you anyway. And then when you get older, you're more mature about it. And it's like, okay, yeah, this shouldn't stress me out. Like I'm a healthy person. That's really what's important, not how strong my shoulder press is, you know, kind of a thing. So I mean, things change, but that's, that's how I've always approached it. So if you're like, yeah, you can't just throw in an extra 10 sets. That's not part of this program right here because I'm trying to optimize this stuff. So you can't just throw in, oh yeah, you're training right now? I was like, no, because they train here and it's going to throw off the whole system.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  But even though I'm asking you about jujitsu?

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I think mentally I just associated all together.

• 1:41:38Jocko Willink?

  I think you're kind of, I think you, yeah, I think you have your plan and you don't like to deviate from your plan. I think that's basically what it boils down to.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  That is it. And I, and I basically explained like, like why that is, why I'm trying to search my brain, like, why am I so committed to my plan? Because deviations from the plan can still make the plan remain effective. But for some reason, yeah, it's like I'm less comfortable.

• 1:42:02Jocko Willink?

  But you used to train a lot more jujitsu.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:04Jocko Willink?

  You used to train seven days a week.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, because that's like when I cared about like. You know.

• 1:42:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, you don't care about Jiu Jitsu anymore?

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Not as much, no. Yeah, I mean, I care about Jiu Jitsu in and of itself, but like the fact that I got like two days of training in one week versus six or seven. No, I don't care about that as much. No, and even the fact like, I think when you get older, that's natural, you know, the fact that like, okay, I got tapped out by three people today versus like zero, you know, like, you care way less about that later on, I think, I think in my experience. But with certain individuals, it can vary for sure.

• 1:42:41Jocko Willink?

  Text me in the future. Let me know how that goes.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, if that ever happens for you.

• 1:42:46Speaker 02

  You know, the goals change, right? And I'm sure your goals have changed too, like, and for you, it's like a workout should enhance your day. A workout should enhance your life and your day. And if it's not, then you got to reframe the way you look at it and understand the why behind it. Like, why am I doing this in the first place? If it's to make me a better husband, a better dad, to show up more, to be able to go run, jump, climb, like, what is my why? And is this workout in alignment with it? So for example, if your why is to be jacked, to look the part, to be able to go do all these different things in Jiu Jitsu, whether you get 15 reps or 10 reps, it doesn't really matter. You're still going in there, you're clearing your mind, you're showing up better when you leave. And I think that that's what I reflect on because I've had to evolve. You know, 10 years ago, it was setting PRs and, and that was my goal.

• 1:43:31Speaker 02

  And it was an extreme case. Now, earlier today, I was in the hotel, I got after my workout, I was sweating my butt off, I felt great. I left there fired up, charged up, I walked here, dude, I'm feeling great. But that, it's just evolved over the years, but my why has changed.

• 1:43:48Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so once again, train Jiu Jitsu and work out. That's confirmed, right?

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  There's this idea that this guy, Tim, Tom, Tim, the engineer guy, anyway, he, he said, he was talking about his dad and his dad used to be heavy into wrestling and working out and stuff. And I forget if the dad said this or he said this because he watched his dad kind of do this where. Similar to kind of what you're talking about where like, you know, once you get injured, sometimes you're like, well, I guess I'm not doing that anymore, you know? And same thing with like those higher, like let's say a PR approach where it's like, you're trying to do your, get your best lifts every lift.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  So after a while, those best lifts, the numbers start to go down a little bit. So that can easily lead you to think, well, let me not necessarily strive for those because I'm older now, you know? And you essentially let, let those, um, that's like you slip essentially, like you, you, you

• 1:44:43Jocko Willink?

  You lower the standard.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  Lower your own standard. Exactly right. Actively where you allow it to happen like consciously, you know? Where, so I think that was, that was a big part of my stress too, where I'm like, shoot, I'm not getting this, these numbers for the reps I'm, I used to get. So yeah, it'd be easy for me to be like, eh, no big deal. I'm getting older or it could be like, no, I'm going to keep fighting for this thing. But the more that that would happen, and there's all kinds of different reasons, but the more that that would happen where I wouldn't get the numbers, it would stress me out like I'm freaking slipping and I'm, you know, so that would be part of the stress. But at the same time, it's like, there's way more to it than that, you know?

• 1:45:19Speaker 02

  Well, it's going to naturally happen, right? Like as you get older, things are going to change. And so your perspective on it has changed. Like for example, when I finished competing in CrossFit, I'm like, dude, I am always going to be able to clean and jerk 315 pounds, always. That was like my mindset. And now like I could barely clean 315 pounds. And then I'm gonna, you know, five years from now, I might barely be able to clean 225. But I, I have to keep reframing in my mind, like what is like, as long as I'm accomplishing my goals outside the gym, I'm good because otherwise you're chasing a ghost that's going to be, you're chasing something that's just going to stress you out for a lifetime. Like I'll never be able to, when I'm 50, I'm not going to be cleaning jerking 315 pounds. So I put them unrealistic goals on myself and that's just going to set me up for failure.

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that was, that was really the value that I got from it because let's say at the end of the day. It'll come as no surprise. It's gonna be a balance, you know, because and you have to be honest with yourself where it's like, hey, am I backing off on these numbers because? Yeah, I don't have to like put in that kind of work anymore. Or is it like, hey, let me embrace the things that I can do.

• 1:46:21Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  Still do my best and accept like a certain level of honest acceptance that like, hey, this is the reality of it. And I'm not going to be a competitor level. I'm not a competitor anymore. But at the same time, I'm not going to be a slacker anymore because sometimes it's like an excuse to slack, you know, like, hey, I'm older. I got a family now, you know, so I don't have to work out. You still can. You still totally can, but you don't because you use it as an excuse. So I was trying to, it's like a weird balance between those two, you know?

• 1:46:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  And I think that that you highlighted that you can still go hard and not have to be stressed about not getting the numbers, kind of a thing. And I was like, oh, yeah. And that clicked with me.

• 1:47:02Jocko Willink?

  When people get injured, they'll all say like, oh, what do you do? How do you, what do you do when you're injured? And I have a real, which I think is a simple but good answer. Do what you can, right? So, oh, you hurt this arm? Cool. Do kettlebell snatches with the other arm. Do squats, like to work, start working on those one arm pulps. Like, there's a bunch of things you can do when you can't use one arm at all. There's a bunch of things you can do when you can't use your knee. There's a bunch of things you could, so there's all the, like, you, you hurt your back, you, like, I remember I had neck surgery, which I was like, dude, you know, I'll be back in three days, right? Well, what I didn't know is that when they cut open your neck, the back of the neck, they're cutting through a bunch of muscle there. When they go through the front, there's not much muscle that they cut through, but I had one where they cut through my, the back of my neck.

• 1:47:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, your neck, your, your neck muscles are keeping, they're on a hun, they're on all day long. Every position that you're in, there was like one position that I found laying down where I could put my head a certain spot where I could finally get those muscles to relax a little bit. And so, because you're, it's keeping your head

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  balanced. It's like constantly balancing your head. So your muscles are like firing, you don't even know it. They're firing all day long. Well, those were just in agony because they got cut open and sewed back together. But I remember, so I couldn't do anything. And I, I freaking got up and I walked down to my garage and I literally walked around in circles for like eight minutes. And I was like, that's my workout, you know, like, that's it. That's what I got done. And I could, I was in agony from just my head trying to balance while I was walking. And that was like the day after I got surgery. And then, you know, okay, do what you can. Um, the other thing is what I think you gotta be careful of is,

• 1:48:40Jocko Willink?

  well, you know, I used to be able to freaking clean three fifteen and that's my lifetime. That's the standard. And then one day you can't get it. And so you're like, you know what? I'm not doing cleans anymore. That's that. That happened to me, uh, with overhead squats. So I hurt my arm, you know, really bad. And oddly enough, I hurt my arm, my, my main training partner of my life, Dean Lister, who's never hurt me before. He was showing a move and he freaking hurt my arm. He felt terrible about it. I felt angry about it. But anyways, it was I had a, I had to go get a sling. Cause I couldn't, I couldn't handle the weight of my own arm. So for months I couldn't straighten my arm out and I couldn't lock out.

• 1:49:24Jocko Willink?

  Which I tear your, what, do you know what happened? No, cause I didn't go to a doctor. I just freaking dealt with it for months.

• 1:49:32Jocko Willink?

  But I'm sure it was some kind of a injury.

• 1:49:36Jocko Willink?

  Sounds sick to say. Yeah, it was an injury and I heard pops and I couldn't straighten my arm. Um, so I'm sure it was whatever. And this is the time that he said to me, I didn't know your elbows weren't flexible. And I was like, bro, elbows are bones. They're not flexible. But so I couldn't lock out. So I could not do anything even close. I couldn't do a PVC pipe overhead. So, you know, so I was sitting there doing like one-handed kettlebell goblet squats, whatever that might be. So I was doing that for, for months. And when I finally could straighten my arm out, I, I was like, you know, I tried to like, do the, do the PVC pipe and I couldn't really get in position because now my mobility had been impacted.

• 1:50:18Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I thought to myself, this is how, this is how it starts. This is the beginning of the decay. And if you accept it, it will be a downhill like rush of destruction. And so I just was like, okay, we're starting with the PVC pipe it is. And I started and coming back, coming back. And that's what you, that's what you have to do. You can't let the movements go away. You can't let, you can't lose the movements, even if they're assisted and light and they hurt your ego, you gotta do the movements. And the cool thing is, you can build them back. You will build them back. It's going to take persistence, going to take hard work, but you can build them back. Don't submit.

• 1:51:01Jocko Willink?

  To the, to, to the loss of movements, keep doing the movements, whatever they are. Learn new movements. You know, there's all that research coming out now that when you learn new things, it's really good for your, for your, for your brain, right? Instead of just doing this, I have a problem with that. I'm very habitual person, right?

• 1:51:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:19Jocko Willink?

  So I'll do the same workouts, you know, they'll do the same things for, for months. And I'll be like, oh, you can't keep doing this. You gotta do something else. So I think it's important to remember that, you know, don't keep do, always do what you can. And what, what, what's that saying you have about zero? Like, don't do zero?

• 1:51:36Speaker 02

  Never get to zero. So like never zero mentality. Like one thing I just wanted to add, what you're saying is like, focusing on what you can do and not what you can't do is like the immediate mindset shift when you have an injury. Like imagine like with your bicep, what you can't do is XYZ, what you can do is a ton of other stuff. But the idea is like, you can never let your momentum get to zero. Because an object as it's moving, right? It just keeps moving even a little bit, man, even just a walk. It, it, it, it helps you earn your confidence. So you can keep moving. But as soon as you stop for a day, a week, a month, it's very hard to get back into that momentum. But if you just don't let it stop and you just get in a little walk or you, or you do your eight minutes around the garage

• 1:52:20Speaker 02

  or whatever it is, that's the key. So it's the never zero mentality that I think is, is important with training.

• 1:52:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I have another thing that I wrote in Discipline Extreme Field Manual is this is a pretty good rule. When you start feeling tired and you need a day off, don't take it today, take it tomorrow. Like, and listen, I'm not saying don't listen to your body. If you're exhausted, but a lot of times, and even if you say, look, I'm really tired today, but I'll take a day off tomorrow if I'm still tired. But today I'm just gonna go there and do something. I'm, you know, maybe instead of doing my freaking max squat, I'm gonna go there and do some lighter weights and do a, you know, higher rep workout. So I'm making sure I not get hurt. But I'm still gonna go in there and do it. And then if I still feel tired tomorrow. Cool. I'll take the day off. I'll eat a steak and take the day off. That's cool.

• 1:53:06Jocko Willink?

  But, cause it's real easy to, you know, feel tired and we all know this. All three of us all know this a hundred percent. You were tired. You didn't feel like working out. You considered not working out. You went and did the workout. You felt freaking fine. And you might've even gotten a freaking sick workout. Yeah. Maybe even PR'd.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  That happens.

• 1:53:25Speaker 02

  You know, the, the, the area I think about is like, if I'm not feeling it, you have to listen to your body, but after your warmup. So that's what I do. It's like, let's just say it's like, dude, I'm not feeling it. Like I've been traveling or whatever. I'm like, all right, go into the garage, go to the gym, get on the bike. You're on the bike for 10 minutes. If you still don't feel like doing something, chances are you probably shouldn't go too crazy. Just do a little something and leave. But 99.9% of the time after you're on the bike for 10 minutes, your body starts getting a little bit warmed up, you'll be ready.

• 1:53:53Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yep. Mobility protocol 17 alpha. Like sometimes I'll get in there and I'm like, well, I'm going to go do something and that's what I do. I go in there, start warming up. And I'm like, yo, this is, this is not smart. And it's like, okay, cool. You're going to spend, you know, a half an hour doing some mobility, doing some kind of something to keep moving and not let it get to zero, not let your momentum get to zero. That's good stuff.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  That, that field manual protocol.

• 1:54:17Jocko Willink?

  It's a good one.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Pays dividends.

• 1:54:19Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, the hardest part about jujitsu, the hardest part about lifting, the hardest part about writing, the hardest part about executing a project is walking to the gym, walking onto the mat, opening the door to the garage. Like it's always getting there and just, just freaking turn off your brain and start, go start executing.

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like the cure. Cause, cause really the problem, a lot of the time, and this is part of your whole point where the, the problem most of the time isn't your physical. Like, you know, listen to your body. That's a physical thing. Like, hey, your body's not working right now. You're training too much, right? But especially when you've got other stuff in life going on, bro, that mental momentum is a big thing, you know? So if you're focusing on this and stressing about this and then frick, now I gotta go freaking do squats right now. Like, man, I, I'm not. And meanwhile, so you go in the gym, you haven't warmed up nothing, no adrenaline, no blood flow, you know, whatever. Your mind is still on the freaking book or whatever. And so your body is kind of like, hey, we're not really ready for this right now.

• 1:55:18Speaker 02

  But your, your mind is the thing focusing on the wrong thing. So just saying, that's a good protocol too. Warm up. I, I use the first set. I do, okay, I'm gonna do one good set. And if my body is like, hey, we're not doing this, then it's a little bit more of an indicator. But once you get that first set in, it's like-

• 1:55:33Jocko Willink?

  What do you do then? Like, let's say you get the feeling like you do your first set and now you're like, yo, I'm definitely not feeling this. Do you just do a lesser workout? Or you just abandon and try again tomorrow?

• 1:55:43Speaker 02

  I've done that before, yes.

• 1:55:44Jocko Willink?

  I get pissed if I have to do that. I get pissed if I have to abandon. I do my work- cause you know, the warm up takes what, 20 minutes before you start your work sets? And now I'm gonna abandon this? I, I gotta be honest with you. I'm, I'm too, what's this? I have the sunk cost fallacy at that point. I'm like, I'm just gonna do this shit anyways.

• 1:56:01Speaker 02

  I can't do that. You know, I just wanna say, like, for me, it's like, as soon as I walk in the gym or the garage, like literally, immediately, I'm on the bike. And I don't do anything else. Like immediately. I might be like on my phone, whatever, but I'm moving immediately. Cause I just can't, even if I sit in there for two minutes, I'm like, dude. You know what's even worse than the workout though? Is the pre-plunge. Cold plunge. On that one, like, you, I'll walk out of my house and I, I wish like I have my ca- I wish I had a camera show me, like, I'll walk out of my house, I'll just, like, I'm in my mind, it's like, I'm getting in this damn thing. I'll start taking off my clothes, my boxer, my, uh, you know, my board shorts, whatever. I'll just walk right in and just get it and get the hell

• 1:56:43Speaker 02

  out. But if I sit there for even a second, it starts creeping in on me.

• 1:56:48Jocko Willink?

  I don't, I don't plunge before I work out. No, yeah. But you do, you do?

• 1:56:53Speaker 02

  No, no, he's saying, the mental state before plunge versus the mental state before I work out. He's comparing the two. I, I can't, like, I, I was inspired this one time. I was at the beach and this guy comes to the beach, starts walking in Santa Cruz. I watch him, he starts walking. He does not skip a beat. He takes off his clothes, like gets to his boxers, whatever, walks in the ocean, turns around and walks back. I'm like, dude, that's the mentality. Cause as soon as you stop.

• 1:57:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you don't wanna, you don't wanna stop. I have that, like, every once in a while, I'll, I'll go, cause when you're talking about like a workout stressing you out, for me, like when, when it's like kinda squat season and everything, and I'm just like, those, some of those squat workouts, I will warm up.

• 1:57:35Speaker 02

  For a really, really excessively long time, like an idiot.

• 1:57:38Jocko Willink?

  Just like, I don't want to start this first set.

• 1:57:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:41Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna boil down to, and I'll be like stretching and getting out the mobility ball and freaking getting out of this.

• 1:57:49Speaker 02

  Trying to get primed.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, it's such a lie. And what I realized though is, I always tell myself like, okay, you know, just start your watch. Because once you start your watch, it's gonna be over in this amount of time. And that's all there is to it. Nothing can stop. You're gonna have to do it anyways. So just freaking shut up and press go and let's do this.

• 1:58:05Speaker 02

  Have you done the 20 rep back squat program?

• 1:58:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I have a modified one of that that I that I did where I would do, this is, this is probably some kind of an ethical violation in the world. But I would do that. I would do three sets with 20 minutes of rest. So I would do 20 rep squat, lay on the floor for 20 minutes. Get up, do it again. Lay on the floor for 20 minutes. Get up, do it again. And that was just, it was, there's times when I would be doing that where I would legitimately like want to, I'm, I'm, I'm serious. I would want to cry. And I would also, I would be saying to myself, like, I don't really care if I'm strong. I don't really like, it doesn't mean anything.

• 1:58:49Jocko Willink?

  This doesn't, this is meaningless. Like, what am I trying to prove? Like, this doesn't matter. You don't have to do, like, I would be having those kind of conversations. That's the only thing in, with everything I've done in my life, that's the only time where I've been like, hmm, this, you probably don't need to do this right now. Like, there's no reason for this. Like, I've done a lot of stuff where it's like, death, I could die. Where it's like, oh, I could die. And I've never had a fault, like, you know? You don't need to do this. No, I've never even fought that way. But, but the 20 rep squats.

• 1:59:18Speaker 02

  20, 20, 20. Dude, for anybody listening though, if you are gonna get into the 20 rep back squat program, uh, do you want to get up to heavier loads? I mean, those reps ranges could take you up to like three or four minutes with that bar on your back. Just be aware of it. Um, it's a lot of load for a long time. You have to make sure you stay engaged the whole time.

• 1:59:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's very, very difficult. And especially like rep.

• 1:59:41Jocko Willink?

  I would, I would always feel like when I got to 13, I could see the end.

• 1:59:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:59:45Jocko Willink?

  Like, you know, but.

• 1:59:46Speaker 02

  It's like nine, nine to 14, you're like, oh my gosh.

• 1:59:49Jocko Willink?

  Those, yeah, those nine to 13 or something like that. Cause you're not sure if this is worth like what you're doing. Like you're wondering.

• 1:59:58Speaker 02

  You start questioning life.

• 1:59:59Jocko Willink?

  You know, you're saying yourself 10 is pretty good. Like I could just get to 10 and we could kind of call it. Maybe I can break this up into two, all kinds of little mental arithmetic that you're doing to freaking try and get out from underneath that thing. But that is a super squats.

• 2:00:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:12Jocko Willink?

  Super squats, bro. Um, you know, check out super squats. That's, that's the book that give you, will give you the guide on, on the 20 rep squat workout. And the eating protocol.

• 2:00:22Speaker 02

  Of the gallon of milk a day?

• 2:00:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:25Speaker 02

  I knew some people who did that. The longest I've heard is a week to drink a gallon of milk a day and do the 20 rep back squat program. Uh, I think it's twice a week. Um, longest I heard is a week with a gallon of milk a day, whole milk. That's a lot of milk.

• 2:00:38Jocko Willink?

  That person's getting large. You're, you're getting it. The, the, the thing though, that, that 20 rep squat, like what it releases into your body.

• 2:00:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:00:46Jocko Willink?

  What your body does to try and cope, try and cope with this scenario is.

• 2:00:52Speaker 02

  The time under tension and you know, when you think about training protocols, like your body needs to be stimulated in such a way. Like the effective dose is one that stimulates your body in such a way that says, wow, I want to create an adaptation. That was very difficult. I need to get fitter. And that's why CrossFit I think has done so well is it, it, it, it highlights intensity. Now you can go overboard, but when you highlight intensity, your body says, oh my gosh, I want to create adaptation. Same thing happens with time and attention and 20 rep back squat. Your body's just such under fatigue and tension. That it then creates a strong adaptation from it. So that's why it's beautiful.

• 2:01:27Jocko Willink?

  What's the percentage? Like there's some percentage when you're doing a squat, like the amount of muscles that are engaged in your body.

• 2:01:33Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 2:01:34Jocko Willink?

  Is like the largest percentage of muscles that you can get engaged in, in your, I guess if you did overhead squats, right? That might be more maybe like a, a clean and jerk. I mean, obviously.

• 2:01:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:44Jocko Willink?

  But it's a different kind of.

• 2:01:46Speaker 02

  It's more dynamic.

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but overhead squat, you don't get the tension though. So that like because of the balance, I mean, you gotta be really, really, really good at it. But back squat is like the most stable versus.

• 2:01:59Speaker 02

  Well, the overhead squat, if you know, if you do it well, the problem with the overhead squats is if your position is not appropriate, you could, you could not load it up enough to create a super strong stimulus.

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  Their range like.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, yeah. And just, I mean, just physically, like your shoulders at that, in that position is not as stable as the ball bar being on your back.

• 2:02:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, but still, I mean, dude, you look at some only lifters, like my best overhead squat was, I think, like, um, right below 400 pounds. And that's, that's, that's, that's still a lot.

• 2:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a lot.

• 2:02:28Speaker 02

  But let's not forget, you still have to get it over your head. So that was the hardest part. You just, uh, back rack, split jerk it.

• 2:02:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:35Speaker 02

  And now you're sitting there like, oh.

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and again, yeah, good and impressive, but comparatively speaking, you can't say like, oh, yeah, you get more, you can get more tension, generally speaking, on an overhead than a, than a regular back squat.

• 2:02:48Speaker 02

  The idea is to think about like moving a load along, a long distance and moving it pretty quickly is kind of how you produce a lot of power. And that's where you can see some effective workouts.

• 2:02:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure. For sure. So getting back to, getting back on track here a little bit. 2000, so 2016, obviously you're going through your whole situation with your daughter. 2017, you kind of touched on this and it's in the book as well, like where now you've got you, 2017, you renamed the gym to NC fit, because now you've got other things that you've got going on, right? So you, essentially in 2017, you weren't just a CrossFit gym anymore. You had this kind of corporate training and corporate wellness that you're doing. You have other services inside your gyms that are not specifically CrossFit. So you got a lot of stuff and growth. I just wanted to ask you about as you grew, what you said the biggest you got to is 140

• 2:03:41Jocko Willink?

  people or so. What was the leadership, what leadership challenges did you face when you were doing this?

• 2:03:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, uh, many, many. I think that, so when I graduated from college, yes, I got a degree in business management, but I learned a lot from the people that were like, you know, took me underneath their wing, uh, at the gym. But when I graduated, you know, in 08, um, I started a company and from that day, basically forward, I was the boss. I was, I was running the gyms. I was running the business and I wish I had spent more time developing my leadership skills. I think I learned a lot as I went. I think that I had aspirational aspects of me and I had grit and hard work. But I, I, I think that there was many things I could have done better as a leader to empower others,

• 2:04:27Speaker 02

  to, um, be more decisive. Um, I, I think that there was just quite a few leadership journeys that I think I could have. If I had had other people impact me, like for example, I talked about going to the FTX. If I had gone to the FTX before all of this, that would have been helpful because you're not just leading locally. We're now leading internationally with different cultures, with different languages. And it added a lot of, we expanded, I think, I think we probably, we did what we had to do. We expanded very quickly and with that came a lot of, you know, I, I think we could have done a better job creating, who are we, where are we going, what are we doing in a shared mission and vision? We didn't do that well enough. And when we rebranded from NorCal Cross to NC Fit,

• 2:05:12Speaker 02

  my biggest takeaway was that to me, we were still a CrossFit affiliate. It was all the same. I was thinking, well, guys, like, we're just branding to be in control of our own destiny. So we're, and to be more, um, you know, aligned with what we're offering in the gym. But the, the staff didn't see it that way and I didn't do a good job explaining who we are and where we're going. I just said, we're no longer this, we're this. I just thought they just assumed we were the same. But what I should have done better as a leader is sat them down, which I ended up doing like six months later, and said, hey, this is who we are. This is what we believe in. These are our core values. This is this. And even since that day, that was like 2017, man, today, more than ever,

• 2:05:55Speaker 02

  we now have a shared mission of where we're going, which I, I don't think we did a good job of back then. I just. I just, I took it for granted, having the team on the same page. I took it for granted that they were just passionate about CrossFit and helping people. But they weren't necessarily, I could do a better job of them being passionate about our business and where we were going.

• 2:06:14Jocko Willink?

  So going into 2018, and this is actually when this book came out.

• 2:06:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, like 18, 19, yeah.

• 2:06:20Jocko Willink?

  But you had started writing it in 2000, I want to say 2015 or 2016 is when you started writing it and you kind of got redirected, obviously. Attention in other places with, with your daughter, with your business. Um, the book ended up coming out in 2018. And the book, you know, obviously it's called as many reps as possible, but it's, it's a book about this philosophy, right? And you take this philosophy of as many reps as possible, which we've touched on a little bit. And you make that a philosophy, not just for a type of workout, but for how you're sort of going through life. And that's what the book is. The book is a bunch of, and I, I've only read a tiny fraction of it today. So get the book so you can get the details. But the book is a bunch of situations that you were in, that you utilized this mentality, which is a

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  basically a workout, a type of workout mentality, but you applied it to other things that you had to do in life, business decisions, you know, getting through these uh, terrible situations with your family and getting things back on track. So, so you end up applying this and that's what the book is about. So I, I wanted to just go through this real quick.

• 2:07:24Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  The, the actual AMRAP, AMRAP mentality and what it means. You say in the book here, "The AMRAP mentality is a high-performance mindset that embodies five major components. It is the tool I use day in and day out to accomplish goals of both large and small. This mindset is a major contributing factor to the success I've earned in competition and in business. It is also one of the most important approaches my wife and I took when figuring out how to manage Ava's battle with leukemia. I hope you find it as meaningful and powerful in your own life." Here's a short recap of each facet of the AMRAP mentality. Now again, you've already, you introduced these in the beginning. And then you give examples, but this is the recap and I just want for people to know, understand these things and how it can help them.

• 2:08:09Jocko Willink?

  So the first one is know your why. Your why is the foundation of the AMRAP mentality. It is the deeper meaning and purpose that drives you. Your why guides your actions and keeps you on course. More than just fuel, a strong why demands intimately knowing and understanding who you are, what you do, and why you do it. Your why may change over time, but one thing remains constant. Without a strong why, you can get lost, distracted, or end up chasing the wrong things.

• 2:08:43Jocko Willink?

  So important to understand deeply why you are doing what you're doing. And again, this doesn't just apply to as many reps as possible, which is what the workout is.

• 2:08:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08:54Jocko Willink?

  The workout is as many reps as possible in a certain amount of time. You got, you know, whatever the exercise or exercises are, you got this much time, you can do as many as you possibly can. And in order to make that happen in life, you gotta know why you're doing it. Uh, next one, focus on what you can control. And you've mentioned this a few times today. In life, business, and competition, things can generally be divided into two categories. What's in your control and what's not in your control. When you boil it down, there are only a few things that are in our control. The good news is these few things are some of the most powerful. Your mindset, actions, reactions, preparation, hard work, perseverance, among other things. When you take your valuable energy and move it toward focusing on what's out of your control, things can go badly and fast.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  This is a weak mindset. You're at the mercy of other people. When it comes down to it, you will be more successful and happier by focusing on what you can control. Yeah, this is a big one. This is a big one.

• 2:09:51Speaker 02

  Probably the biggest one.

• 2:09:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it definitely is. And one thing that I would say, I word a little bit different. I think about it a little bit differently. As you say, when you boil it down, there are only a few things that are in your control. I always look at it like there's only a few things that are really, truly, completely out of your control. Like, most things you can have an impact over. Like, you can set yourself up and you can control a lot more than people think.

• 2:10:19Jocko Willink?

  You know, one of the examples I give on this is like, you're supposed to do a mission and you're gonna take helicopters to do the mission. And bad weather comes in, so the helicopters can't fly, so you can't do the mission. I have no control over the weather, right? So how can that be my fault? But if you actually look at it like, okay, well, what can I do? We're planning to take helicopters on this operation. Hey, in case there's bad weather, let's have vehicles on standby. Oh, okay. Now, all of a sudden, bad weather rolls in and we can still take the vehicles and we can still go do the operation. There's all kinds of situations where if you abandon control, you're giving up something that you could, you could almost certainly impact.

• 2:11:01Jocko Willink?

  And then you get to a point, there's some things that are legitimately, you have no control over, like your daughter getting leukemia. You, you just have no control over that. The only thing you control is how you respond to it. And, you know, those are the things that you talk about. And when you focus on the wrong thing, do you focus on the things you can't control?

• 2:11:17Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna drive you crazy.

• 2:11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and something that someone can do, that's a tangible, tangible takeaway from this podcast is, obviously, what Jocko is talking about, the way I look at it, and I first did this with competition is, I would take some that's stressing me out. Let's just say it's the CrossFit Games. And I'd say, I'd, I'd take two circles and I'd put on the left in control, put on the right out of my control. And I'd say, list all the things that are in your control. Did I double knot my shoes? How do I eat? How did I warm up? How did I, you know, what music am I listening to? What, all, all those things, right? Tons. Take things that are out of control. What your competitors are doing, what the events are gonna be. The temperature outside, whatever. And take, and then choose, like every day, so I would actually have this like on my refrigerator,

• 2:12:01Speaker 02

  choose to focus on the circle on the left. And you could take that for a number of situations in your life, but that was helpful for me in the beginning. Since then, I don't necessarily use that diagram as much, but it was really helpful for me to actually list it out. And it's like, oh, wow, there's a big list that's in my control. Let me, let me, let me pay attention there.

• 2:12:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you really do see people get driven crazy by things that are out of their control. And it's terrible. And you cannot let that happen. Even like the example you just gave, um, Uh, hey, I've got this, I'm doing a competition. The time that you, the time that you freaking passed out from competition.

• 2:12:37Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:12:37Jocko Willink?

  You could have been like, well, you know, I just had a reaction. That's not on me. Instead, you're like, no, I, what can I do to change that? How can I adjust my mentality? How can I make sure this doesn't happen again? Like those are, instead of just throwing your hands up like, well, you know, I, I don't know. I guess it just, that's just the way it is. I went too hard and that's just the way it goes. And I just passed out. Like, no, you, you looked at that and analyzed it and said, well, how can I make sure that doesn't happen again? As opposed to just saying, that's just the way I am, which would have been a, hey, this isn't in my control. Yeah, it is.

• 2:13:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:13:05Jocko Willink?

  Just gotta learn how to control it.

• 2:13:06Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 2:13:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, next one, work hard.

• 2:13:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13:10Jocko Willink?

  Hard, smart work is the currency of the AMRAP mentality. If you are not ready to put in work, or if you're looking for shortcuts, this mindset is not for you. Roll up your sleeves, ditch excuses, start grinding. There's no better way to accomplish your goals than to work really hard. It sounds simple, but a lot of time we need to stop talking and start doing. So let's go.

• 2:13:31Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:13:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:32Speaker 02

  Check.

• 2:13:34Jocko Willink?

  Yep, check.

• 2:13:37Jocko Willink?

  Uh, shift gears, and this is something that might take a little bit more explanation. And you cover it really well in the book, but shifting gears in the AMRAP mentality really means being invested and active in the present. When you're at work, be at work. When you're at home with family, be with your family. When you're working out, work out. Don't be one foot in, one foot out. This is the connection between your body and mind. Be all into your current activity. And when it's time to shift gears to the next thing, be all in there too. When you're thinking about one thing, but doing another, you will not achieve optimal results.

• 2:14:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this one really hits home for me. So the way I like to look at the AMRAP mentality is I like to look at it like riding a bike. You need to be present and focused when you ride a bike. If you're not, you're going to tip over. You need to work hard, you need to pedal. And then depending on the terrain, you might need to switch gears based on the hill. When I think about my day, I think about it in terms of switching gears. So for example, I got up pretty early. I went and worked out. When I'm there, I'm am wrapping, I'm present, I'm focused. I'm not thinking about this, I'm thinking about that. Now, I'm here. I'm only here with you guys. You don't see me on my, not that I would, but I'm not distracted on my phone. I'm not thinking about business. I'm just here with you guys. After we're done, I'll switch gears again to something else. And so the way I like to segment my day is, you know, in the morning, I'll train with my kids.

• 2:14:53Speaker 02

  Then I'll switch gears when they go to school to business. Then I'll switch gears to train. Then I'll switch gears. And the one foot in, one foot out mentality was causing a lot of, you know, the, I wrote this in the book, but like my wife and I were walking down the street one day. I'll never forget the look she gave me. And she's strolling, our daughter. And at the time, like I was competing professionally, we were opening internationally. It just had a lot on my mind. And I was thinking about walking on my hands across the games. And she asked me a question, I just remember looking at her and saying like, I was just like, I have no idea what you just said. And I remember the look on her face was like, not one of upset, but just one of like, she was just disappointed, right? And I said to myself, like, I gotta get my stuff together. Like if I'm gonna be walking with my wife and daughter, I need to be present and focused here.

• 2:15:37Speaker 02

  Cause what was happening is I was taking calls with Asia and hitting assault bike intervals. Like I wasn't doing, I was not reaching my potential in any area because I wasn't optimized in that specific area. And that's what switching gears is.

• 2:15:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a, it's prioritize and execute, what we call prioritize. You've got to focus on what you're doing right now and you've got to focus your resources on that. If you're trying to do three, four things at the same time, you're gonna fail at all of them. It's gonna be a disaster. Uh, the last one is reevaluate.

• 2:16:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  Moments of reevaluation in the am rap mentality are those times when you need to take a step back to reexamine your why and your focus. These are major milestones and they usually occur during, usually occur around big changes. Having the ability to reevaluate is essential and shows a tremendous amount of self-awareness. Over time, your goals and your why may change and that's okay. It's important to stay connected to the world around you and not stay locked into something that no longer is right for you. As the saying goes, timing is everything. It's no different in the am rap mentality. Your why, when you're 20, may be very different than your why at 30. Take time to honor your why by reexamining it over time. So.

• 2:16:49Jocko Willink?

  Taking that step back and actually looking at what's going on, if you don't do that, you're gonna have problems.

• 2:16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, the way I like to think about that is like, I like to do micro check-ins of myself. So like, let's just say I'm in the sauna, or I'm on a bike ride, and I'll say, hey, how am I doing as a husband, a father, as a business owner, as an athlete, whatever? Micro, like daily. And then every now and then, you have those big check-ins, like the ones I was talking about with my wife about the CrossFit Games, those are big moments where you say, hey, do I need to reevaluate the whole thing? An example for, you know, maybe you lose your job, maybe you get married, maybe you have a kid, that would require you to kind of reevaluate everything, but these micro check-ins help me so I don't wake up a year from now and say, damn, you know, I was a, I was a bad dad, or whatever, name the thing, right? I could have been better here, here, here, here, here. This one's more of a macro.

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I looked at this too, is also almost as if you're debriefing, right? Debrief is a huge way to improve what you're doing, and if you don't debrief after you do an operation, if you don't debrief after you do a project, if you're not debriefing after you get done with a fight, you're not learning anything. And so for me, this was also like, like looking at what you're doing and saying, alright, let's do a quick debrief on my performance as a dad, as a businessman, on that project, on that workout, whatever the case may be, so you can say, oh, I hear some adjustments I need to make to get better. And, and just to close out the book, and again, the book is, there's all, so much good information. And actually, one of the things you got in here is you've got a bunch of little, um,

• 2:18:17Jocko Willink?

  they're like mental drills to go through, and it's sort of, it's, it's almost like, I guess, for lack of a better word, it's like meditations on like, hey, think about this for the next eight minutes, write down these, what, what you discover, you've got a bunch of these little drills, basically mental drills to do, and some physical drills to do as well.

• 2:18:37Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 2:18:37Jocko Willink?

  So, and then on top of that, you have a bunch of anecdotes that describe how well this AMRAP mentality has worked for you in a bunch of variety of different situations. So, get the book, I'm gonna close it out with this, this mindset is not a gimmick, it's not a cheap trick hack or shortcut, I'm not telling you that the AMRAP mentality will magically transform your life while you lay back and sip frozen margaritas. You will need to work. And for this thing to really fire on all cylinders, you will need to be the hardest worker in the room. But you should want it that way. When you learn to enjoy the labor, the success is even sweeter because you've earned it. So. There you go. That's what this thing gets into. Now, you got tested with the AMRAP mentality, as you already mentioned real quickly, when COVID hit in 2020.

• 2:19:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:19:23Jocko Willink?

  So what happened to the businesses when the COVID hit?

• 2:19:25Speaker 02

  Oh, man, that was, that was big. You know, I, I think that adversity, you know, micro dose of adversity in the gym, I think can really help us outside the gym. And that's why I expose my children to all kinds of sports, because I think they learn how to overcome these little things. And then in life, when something big happens, they're better prepared. But for us, yeah, I mean, who'd have thought that COVID would happen? And at the time, we were their own operating or running, I'd say, close to 30 brick and mortar locations. We had many, many gyms utilizing our resources and tools. And it was a lot. And when you think about brick and mortar, when you think about the businesses hit hard through, hardest through COVID, I imagine brick and mortar gyms probably had to be one of them, right?

• 2:20:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, it was definitely one of the biggest ones.

• 2:20:08Speaker 02

  Because you couldn't do food to go. You couldn't do any of that stuff. And then even, especially in California, different, different, you know, areas had their own rules. From a, from a leadership perspective, from a, from a, from a core perspective, we chose to abide by all city and county guidelines. Now, was that the right decision? I don't know. I don't know if it was or wasn't, but that's what we chose. And we could have gone the other way, right? We could have not gone that direction, but we chose to. So we had some locations shut down for over a year and big rents. And so our, our business has consolidated tremendously. So through that, you know, obviously, our brick and mortar condensed down. We did what we had to do to retain our team, to take care of our team.

• 2:20:52Speaker 02

  We grew digitally, but we, but we consolidated brick and mortar. Luckily, we still had the corporate wellness that was pumping globally, but we switched to digital for a lot of that. And here we are now, 2023, and just the business has evolved, right? But that was a, a very, very difficult time for us and many gym owners in our space.

• 2:21:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So what did this switch to digitally? What does that look like? What, what was this? The NC Fit app?

• 2:21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the NC Fit app was, you know, so NC Fit, again, born in NorCal, we service gym owners through our app, which gives them session plans, programming, all the stuff that we use in our gyms, it gives it to them. And it's a really valuable tool, because what I recognize as we grew globally, was that we wanted to have a similar experience from one gym to another. And we weren't giving them that. We were just giving them the workout. But instead, we gave them the workout, the warm up, scaling. Timeline, you name it in a daily video. So that's what gyms were using. So that business stayed pretty strong. But then we rolled out an end user app to help obviously generate some revenue, but also help our members who couldn't come into the gym. We gave them an app that they could

• 2:21:59Speaker 02

  use when they're at home. So that that's kind of how we pivoted there and got through that. And now I'm very fortunate that although we've consolidated, our brick and mortars are doing really well today.

• 2:22:12Jocko Willink?

  And then there was also like craziness going on in the CrossFit world.

• 2:22:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you know, a lot of that, I mean, frankly, I wish none of that happened at all.

• 2:22:22Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:22:23Speaker 02

  Um, you know, we had a lot of gyms that looked at us for guidance during that time. And they were part of the NC Fit Collective. And there was some stuff going on in CrossFit. And, you know, a lot of gyms were looking at us like, hey, what are we going to do? What is the next step? And my heart has always been in the right place. Like I have tried from day one, anybody who knows me, to try and support gym owners and coaches. I want to see them make money, provide for their families and do what they love for a living. And, you know, during that time, I just tried to do that same thing. Try to provide whatever I could. And, um, yeah, we rolled out a license program during that time, which since then we've kind of decided isn't the the vision for where we want to go as a business. We learned a lot that experience. But during COVID, it was it was a trying time for CrossFit in general, but now I think they're

• 2:23:08Speaker 02

  at a good spot.

• 2:23:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I I mean, CrossFit's doing really well right now. They brought in Dawnfall. We had Dawnfall on the podcast, former Marine, great dude. Um, and they're really focused, they're focused on like, really helping out the affiliates. Like, it used to be very, very laissez faire, meaning like, you just open a gym and if you've been, if you've got a CrossFit Level 1 cert, you can have a gym, it could be, it could be freaking literally in a tent, right? Or it could be in a 20,000 square foot, you know, Metroplex. Is that a word? And it could be anything in between. And you could have coaches that were, that, you know, failed gym class, and you could have coaches that were Olympic lifters and everything in between.

• 2:23:54Jocko Willink?

  But now it seems like, well, that's one of the things that they're focusing on now is like really helping out, putting investments into the affiliates so that the affiliates are more, more supported. That's what they're looking to do.

• 2:24:06Speaker 02

  A good way to think about CrossFit is it's a license model, meaning you pay a fee to utilize the mark. And in 2008, I was very, very blessed to be able to utilize this mark and this methodology and be a part of the sport. That changed my life forever. And Greg Glassman was the founder of a methodology that in my opinion, has been incredibly impactful across a variety of things. Not only across many entrepreneurs and businesses through the CrossFit space, but also obviously I think gymnastics has gotten a little boost. I think Olympic lifting has gotten a huge boost. I think he's

• 2:24:38Jocko Willink?

  Powerlifting.

• 2:24:38Speaker 02

  Powerlifting. I think he's one of the biggest reasons

• 2:24:41Jocko Willink?

  Everything's gotten a huge boost.

• 2:24:41Speaker 02

  Why you go into a conventional gym now and that space looks different. Where you go to a hotel gym and you'll see kettlebells. A lot of that is due to his innovation from, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago. And with the license model, it was, it was, it was, it was always Greg's idea that, you know, the cream will rise to the top and I'm just going to provide this methodology and you do you. And I think for a long time that worked really well. It gave guys like me the opportunity to build a business with paying a, you know, a very nominal license fee and the barrier to entry was very low. But with the barrier to entry being really low, it also allows for people to get in who are just kind of hobby mindset. And so that's where you see this discrepancy over the years, right? You have some people are treating it like a hobby. Some people look at

• 2:25:25Speaker 02

  it as a business. And now I think with Dawn and others, they're trying to create a streamlined approach to CrossFit because I think there's a stigma about CrossFit. When, when people hear it, whatever that stigma is, you might have an impression. And I would assure you that if you actually went into a gym, if you went into an affiliate that really cared and, and I'd say almost all, basically all of them do, and you actually spent time there, you'd probably have an amazing experience. And I think that more people should look at that opportunity. It's like jiu-jitsu. You go into jiu-jitsu, you have one experience, maybe it wasn't the perfect experience. I think jiu-jitsu could change your life. I think CrossFit could change your life too. You see, you go find the right gym and go spend some time there.

• 2:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I, I think just like in jiu-jitsu.

• 2:26:11Jocko Willink?

  Leave your ego at the door because if you bring your ego in, and I think that's what, you know, one of the, one of the bad raps for CrossFit, you know, in, you know, in the past decade has been like, oh, guys are trying to do stuff that they're not capable, guys and men and women are trying to do stuff that they shouldn't be doing, that they don't have the proper technique for, and they're pushing themselves really hard and they're trying to execute things when they're fatigued that they shouldn't be trying to execute. They shouldn't even try to execute them when they're fresh, much less trying to execute them when they're fatigued. And when people let their ego come in, both as a coach and as a, as a, as a trainer, as an athlete, if you're my coach and you have a big ego and I'm an athlete and I, maybe I don't even have an ego, but you're telling

• 2:26:55Jocko Willink?

  me you can get this because your ego wants me to perform well, when you should be saying, hey, Jocko, your, your, your, your form's starting to fail. You need to back off. Or if my ego's saying, hey, you know what? Don't worry, coach, I can, I can do more. That's when people, that's when you get hurt. That's when you get hurt. So I think they've now got a great focus of making sure that that doesn't happen. Also opening it up for like, normal people. Because I think when you see, when, when you see a kind of stereotypical CrossFit person, everyone pictures, oh, someone that's just jacked and looks like they're an incredible athlete, looks like they're a freaking college track athlete or something. When the reality is, most CrossFit gyms are normal people.

• 2:27:39Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:27:39Jocko Willink?

  That are out there trying to get in better shape. And what a great way to get in a better shape. What a great way to meet new people. What a great way to, uh, get, get to be part of a community. It's all good. And I think some of those stigmas, I think CrossFit earned some of the stigmas that they got. And now they're in the process of getting rid of those stigmas by changing and, and evolving to where their, the ego's much less, um, and, and more focused on, hey, we got normal, this is for normal people.

• 2:28:09Speaker 02

  I mean, what I would say is that CrossFit is, in my opinion, the most effective training program. Ever. I mean, at least, at least for me, it is, it is building people in our gyms, including myself, who are capable outside the gym. And I think that they could lift, they could, they could pull, they could, but you need to enter it and just detach from your ego. Just go in there and maybe try a few different affiliates. Find the one that works for you, just like finding a jujitsu gym. But I, I think, once you try it, if you're interested in higher intensity training, CrossFit's way to go. And, and you will find coaches who just deeply care. And I think that's what makes it special. So I do think, though, that as an overall ecosystem,

• 2:28:53Speaker 02

  we are getting better. There was a time where maybe it wasn't as good. But now I think you see coaches maturing. I think you see athletes maturing. I think you see the leadership maturing, and it's at a really good spot right now. And I'm excited for the future of it.

• 2:29:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. What else you got going on?

• 2:29:09Speaker 02

  Well, you know, so

• 2:29:13Jocko Willink?

  What's training, you're wearing the Train Hard t-shirt. What's Train Hard all about?

• 2:29:16Speaker 02

  So Train Hard is something that we've been talking about forever. You know, it's, it's, it's kind of a culmination of, it's a culmination of all of my training, right? It's for 20 years, trying to meet with the best coaches in the world to be better at powerlifting, Olympic lifting, all these different things. And then my exposure through, you know, different law enforcement groups we work with, or through jujitsu, and saying, like, what program am I fired up about right now? Like, what, what do I love? And CrossFit with the higher complexity movements is phenomenal, and we do it at our gyms. But for me, Train Hard is a new program that is designed for people who want to act the part, look the part, and never hit zero. And what that means to me is, act the part means that

• 2:30:00Speaker 02

  you could protect and provide. And so as a dad, this is where I'm at on my journey, right? I'm 38 years old. I've been training a long time. I used to want to be the fittest on earth. Now it's like, I want to be able to jump, climb, and push, do whatever I need to do to protect myself, my family, including jujitsu and other things, right? That's important to me. My son fell into a bonfire last year, and I jumped up and was able to push him out. That is a skill that I was able to develop because of the gym. But I also want to be able to provide, and I think this is not just talking about like hunting. I'm not referring to it only that way. I mean, provide experiences. I want to be fit enough for my family that if my kid asks me to do anything, I'm game.

• 2:30:43Speaker 02

  You want to go jump in the ocean, you want to go climb something, you want to go play baseball, let's go. That, I want to provide experiences, but I also want to provide financially. And I believe that if someone comes in, is using our programs or is training hard, they're going to show up differently when they're at work. And that is going to help them provide more for their family. They're going to show up with more energy, more self-confidence. They're going to look the part, and I believe that's going to help them in the long term to provide financially as well. So that's what we're about now at Train Hard. And we're launching in January. It's an online program, three programs. One's mainly strength conditioning, one is more of a functional style bodybuilding, and one is your Never Zero program. And it's designed for people who align with kind of where I'm at on my journey today.

• 2:31:28Jocko Willink?

  And that, that launches in January?

• 2:31:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, along with, we're going to be working with your team for the...

• 2:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we're doing, uh, we're doing something, a little, little something called the Deaf Reset.

• 2:31:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:38Jocko Willink?

  I heard of that, yeah. Yeah. This one goes Freedom Reset. And what it's, you know, we did it last year. And it's, it's, you know, it's like, it's a reset button, right? Sometimes you gotta hit Ctrl, Alt, Delete. You know that stuff because you're a computer nerd.

• 2:31:54Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Right, Echo Charles?

• 2:31:55Speaker 02

  Yes, you're correct.

• 2:31:56Jocko Willink?

  So sometimes everything's getting all jumbled up, jammed up, do you like to say?

• 2:31:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:31:59Jocko Willink?

  And so it's not functioning the way it should. You hit Ctrl, Alt, Alt, Delete, do a little reset.

• 2:32:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:32:05Jocko Willink?

  So that's what this is. And, and you know, we did it last year. It was kind of like, I didn't know what to expect of what the response would be. But man, you get to see people just hit that reset button and really make an awesome transition and get on the path. And you know, you hear me talk about the path. The path in life, the path of discipline. I can tell you this.

• 2:32:30Jocko Willink?

  If you're on the path in life, your life is better. That this has just been proven to me over and over and over and over and over again. If you're on the path of discipline in life, your life is going to be better. A hundred percent. And so that's what the DEF reset is. And what we're doing is it's pretty cool. We got you are participating and you've got a bunch of workouts ready. That are fully scalable. And what's the minimum gear needed for the workout program?

• 2:32:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, a set of dumbbells. If you have access to a jump rope and a cardio piece of equipment would be ideal. If not, you could identify adjustments, but we are going to add a load in there with the dumbbells. If you don't have it, you can use a backpack or something else, but it would be nice if you had a set of dumbbells, a jump rope and an access to a form of cardio. And we're going to be putting out five workouts a week. They're all going to be EMOM based. So for people who are interested in doing this, I love EMOMs. I think EMOMs are the best way to train. Not the only way to train, but in my opinion, I love them because it's you against the clock. And you could set quantifiable goals and then race against it. It also helps this never zero mentality where guys, all you gotta do is show up, hit the workout, it's gonna be 30 minutes or less every day.

• 2:33:42Speaker 02

  And that could be a thing that you do along with whatever else you want to do for that day. But that's the idea.

• 2:33:46Jocko Willink?

  How come you like EMOM better than AMRAP for a workout for this particular occasion?

• 2:33:50Speaker 02

  I mean, that's a great question. There are going to be AMRAPs within EMOMs. So let me give you an example. It would be minute one and two.

• 2:34:00Speaker 02

  Steady state cardio at a moderate effort. Minute three and four AMRAP. So as many reps as you can of three dumbbell deadlifts, three lunges and three pushups. You do that as many times you can in three, in the two minutes. You then rest a minute. So I love AMRAPs, as many reps as you can within a timeframe. But I think the reason why EMOMs work so well is that it gives some like calculated rest in there. And it allows you to gamify it a little bit more because you have a minute by minute case where you could identify and just take a deep breath and say, how am I doing on this workout? Okay, let's get back at it.

• 2:34:34Jocko Willink?

  When, do you ever do those EMOMs where you, I mean, I know you do, but one, one minute, the first minute you do one rep, the second minute you do two reps? What do you think of those things?

• 2:34:44Speaker 02

  I love them, like, like death, they call them death buy, right? So it's like one, two, three. I mean, the funny thing about those is like, so an example would be like, um, I don't know, one clean and jerk at 135 the first minute. You, you do it, you feel like, all right, man, like, I'm feeling good, right? You go two, you're like, this is easy. Three, four, five. All of a sudden it gets like, let's just say seven, you're like, oh, okay. And it just escalates quickly. So yeah, I do those. But here's the thing about EMOMs, which is why it's my favorite. Let's just say you want to learn a new skill. Let's just say it's the muscle up. And you said, I want to do one EMOM, one muscle up every minute on the minute for 10 minutes. You do your muscle up, you come down, you have plenty of rest, but it gives you an opportunity to reflect and say, how did I do? Did I utilize my hip?

• 2:35:27Speaker 02

  Did I drive out of the, out of the receiving position? Did I hit good positions? And then you could change it on the next one. So this way you don't finish an AMRAP for 10 minutes and then look back on your workout and say, wow, I wish I had done this, this, this different. So that's one of the reasons why I like EMOMs is that there is small calculated breaks that could give you a second to correct something that's going on. Or inspire you to keep those same numbers. One of the workouts, for example, in the DEF Reset is going to be, uh, you know, max pushups in 50 seconds or a minute, max, uh, situps and max squats, and then a minute rest. And you'll do that for 20 minutes. Well, if in the beginning, your first week, if let's just say you get, I did this yesterday, I think I got 30, uh, 30 and 35 or something like that.

• 2:36:11Speaker 02

  At the end of the four weeks, you can go back and try and test that and see if you can improve that, but it gives you a quantifiable number to fight for.

• 2:36:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's going to be good. So we got that, so you're going to be participating in the DEF Reset, given, given those workouts and making videos and talking about, uh, various protocols for working out. That's going to be cool. Echelon Front's participating as well, so we're doing like leadership things and, and making leadership kind of challenges and stuff like that. And some, some educational videos and bringing people to some of our online training for that. And then I'm going to be doing, sort of talking about. Discipline as as a broad thing and talk about also talk about nutrition and and that level as well. So that's going to be a a good time.

• 2:36:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a good time for the death reset. We're we're putting out a warning order. This is another thing that I learned from last year. You know, I I'm I'm probably the one of the most guilty people of this of like, I don't do New Year's resolutions because like I'll just I'm just doing it right now. Start today. Don't like I I've I've done that my my whole life. I've been saying that like, dude, I'm a my New Year's resolution. What? Nothing changed. There's nothing different today, tomorrow, whatever. But I'm telling you, I saw such a great impact last year. So and also, I thought about this. When you're doing a mission, do you just like randomly start the mission? Because you just thought of it? No, you actually prepare. So we're doing like a warning order. We're going to put out the word. This is what it is. This is what you need to be prepared

• 2:37:39Jocko Willink?

  for. So like, everyone's listening to this today that's going to do it. You just heard it. Jump, uh, jump rope and set of dumbbells. You can get a set of dumbbells at a yard sale for for a dollar fifty.

• 2:37:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Like, you might have to bargain with the kid and maybe give him two bucks. But I mean, you're talking like a twenty pound, thirty pound, forty pound, maybe probably even thirty.

• 2:37:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it depends on what your obviously your fitness level, right? But like, yeah, as high the highest you would want is like a set of fifties. That's the highest.

• 2:38:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And when you say a set of fifties and I start thinking about doing like, like thrusters with fifty pound dumbbells.

• 2:38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:38:13Jocko Willink?

  E moms like I'm thinking thirties.

• 2:38:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:38:16Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? Because that's so probably most people, if you have a set of thirties, twenty fives, thirties, you're probably going to be good to go. So there's a little bit of the warning order right now. Get yourself a jump rope. Maybe start practicing jump rope a little bit.

• 2:38:29Speaker 02

  Or find and find and identify another cardio, right? So if you want to run, run. If you want to get a bike, get a bike. But you we want to have some type of cardio implement if you have access to it. If not, you're just running outside.

• 2:38:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so running outside is an option.

• 2:38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:38:42Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cool. What's another? Do you? Is there any exercise that you consider a cardio exercise that?

• 2:38:51Jocko Willink?

  You could supplement.

• 2:38:52Speaker 02

  Um, I, I, I think running is your best. I mean, if you can't jump rope, you could do plate jumps. You could just jump in place. You could also do up downs, which is kind of going to be, it's not going to tax your chest as much, but you can get your cardiovascular like response. But I think the idea would be probably some type of running or biking is kind of like the, the goal or intent, even like a skier or something like that.

• 2:39:12Jocko Willink?

  Yep. When I was training Dean Lister, back in the day, we used to train at a place called City Boxing. And they had, they had above the mat, there was pipes and there was lights and they were at different heights. And so the, the light was a little bit taller, like you had to, you had to, you had to set your jump. But basically those are the two kind of cardio implements I used with him. Well, one of the main cardio implements that I use, touch the pipe and he would just have to sit there and just touch, touch, touch. It's like you're jumping, you know, six inches or maybe it was even like, once you put your hand up, it was probably like four inch jump, but you do that for a minute, jump, jump, jump. And then sometimes it was touch the light and the light was

• 2:39:56Jocko Willink?

  like a, you know, a higher jump that you had to like explode for. One was just like a pop, pop, pop, pop. And but you combine those two things together, that can be good. So what you're saying, like maybe you just get a little, like maybe jumping up on a curb, you know, jump up on a curb, do that for, well, you know, for your cardio. If you can't run, but uh, so there's your warning order for def reset. It's going to start January 1st, man. It's going to be one of those gigs. I know you could start today if you really cared. You start today. Well, guess what? Plan today. Get a jump rope. Start learning how to jump rope. Jump rope, uh, wear shoes, especially if you're beginning.

• 2:40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Like I work out barefoot, but if I'm going to be jumping rope, I'm getting the sneaks on, boy.

• 2:40:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:36Jocko Willink?

  Cause you don't want me cracking them up.

• 2:40:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:40:38Jocko Willink?

  You want me to, what's up?

• 2:40:41Speaker 02

  It, can't remember the other day, actually a few weeks ago, where, oh, when we were doing a video and I

• 2:40:47Speaker 01

  I come in with regular shoes on, by the way. And he's teasing my shoes. He's like, well, my man, we're here with a full locker shoes. They're like regular shoes.

• 2:40:55Jocko Willink?

  Like vans or like?

• 2:40:56Speaker 01

  Like regular Adidas like shoes, regular for working out. And then, yeah, it started to like provide some perspective. I don't know why I flashback to that.

• 2:41:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:06Speaker 01

  But it was weird how you were teasing me about regular shoes. They weren't even like, like crazy shoes. Black and white. Yep. Exactly. And you're like, well, my man. It didn't make sense, but now it makes sense a little bit, a little bit more. That's what I was laughing at.

• 2:41:19Jocko Willink?

  There you go. With the white vans. They weren't white. They weren't even white vans.

• 2:41:23Speaker 01

  They were black Adidas shoes with white trim. That's it. Normal shoes.

• 2:41:28Jocko Willink?

  There you are rolling in there.

• 2:41:31Jocko Willink?

  So that's cool. And we'll have like a webpage. We're going to host a bunch of videos on that webpage. Again, this is just like, how can we hook people up? When I see the impact it had last year, it's going to be awesome. And there's like little challenges. One of the challenges is, and I think this is pretty awesome. Burpees.

• 2:41:49Speaker 01

  In 10 minutes.

• 2:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Every day, it's either you do 100 burpees or, or as many burpees as you can in 10 minutes. That's a, that's a great little mechanism for life. It's such a good mechanism for life. Actually, you have one of the things in, in your book is max burpees in six minutes. This is a similar thing, but it's one of those things where if you can't find 10 minutes in your day, bro, you need to re, you need to reassess everything in your whole world.

• 2:42:15Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 2:42:16Jocko Willink?

  If you can't get 10 minutes to do some burpees, and it's a good number, you know, like that's a good pace. And if you can beat it, cool. So go as hard as you can. If you get it done in seven, seven minutes, man, that's great. If you do 100 burpees in, in six minutes and 48 seconds, that's awesome. If you can only get 32 burpees in 10 minutes, cool. By the end of Def Reset, you're guaranteed to be doing a lot better. That's one of the things. That's one of the like additional little challenges. And again, Burpees are no joke.

• 2:42:43Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:42:43Jocko Willink?

  You can do, you can have a devastating workout with burpees in three minutes.

• 2:42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, like it's cause you're moving your whole body, right? I mean, one of my go-tos is 15 burpees every minute on the minute for 10 minutes. It's like, that's like my jam. It's, it's my go-to if I'm traveling, if I'm doing anything, it's just like, it just resets me, pushes me in a great spot. And it just, you're, you're drenched.

• 2:43:04Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're drenched.

• 2:43:05Speaker 02

  You know?

• 2:43:06Jocko Willink?

  You ever do burpee pull-ups?

• 2:43:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:43:07Jocko Willink?

  That's another.

• 2:43:08Speaker 02

  Or burpees to a target is also another example. So like back when you were talking about training Dean, instead of just doing jumps, which are still great. You do a burpee, but you hit a target. For some reason, it's so much harder. But like, because you're like having to extend or whatever. But I mean, the, the thing about it is like.

• 2:43:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, that's because by the time I get to burpee number 62, my vertical jump is a one millimeter.

• 2:43:31Speaker 02

  It's just, you know, training doesn't have to be that complicated. I think that people complicate it and the reality is you have to move, you have to move every day. You have to get after it and you have to identify what your why is for training. And for me, my why has evolved over the years and this is what I'm expressing now. Like I'm competing in jujitsu. I'm going to compete in the tactical games. Those things like are like, you know, kind of like pillars that I'm looking for. But on a daily basis, I just want to be able to show up for the family and just be that guy. It's super important to me.

• 2:43:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, so that's Def Reset. We'll be doing that January 1st with a warning order will be coming out here shortly.

• 2:44:05Jocko Willink?

  Check out, you have a podcast too.

• 2:44:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Jason Kleeb podcast, my co-host and I, Gabe, we just riff about being a dad, where we're at in our journey. And, and it's just evolved over the years. You know, it's, it used to be called Business of Fitness for years. And it was all about talking about what I've learned running gyms. And now it's the Jason Kleeb podcast, which allows me to talk about anything that I want to talk about.

• 2:44:26Jocko Willink?

  Check. And then, you know, one thing I wanted to mention is you are still involved. Like you, like you said, your, your daughter, um, thank God is, is recovered and she's cancer-free right now. But you, you're still in the fight and you're helping other people out. You've got two things that you support. Well, I guess you support through Ava's Kitchen, avaskitchen.org. You support something called N E G U dot org.

• 2:44:52Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:44:53Jocko Willink?

  Never, never, ever give up.

• 2:44:55Speaker 02

  Which is actually local to the Southern California area. The founders, they're incredible humans and we've been supporting them for many years. So my wife does an annual fundraiser called Ava's Kitchen. Every year chef Michael Mina and a bunch of other chefs that are very popular. They come and and and host a live auction where they cook in front of you. We've raised millions of dollars for kids fighting cancer and it's been one of the most impactful things I've ever done in my life. And I know for my wife, too, where you could give, you know, when we were in the hospital those months, we just saw a lot of stuff, right? And we want to do our part to try and impact families and provide them experiences. So we fundraise not for the cure, but for the care and not the cure is bad, but where we

• 2:45:38Speaker 02

  fund right now through Nego is for the care. So sending people to Disneyland, you know, giving breakaway adventures. We host events all the time, things like that. So Avis Kitchen.org, you can check that out. The next event will be in March 2024 and we'd love to see you there.

• 2:45:54Jocko Willink?

  So awesome that you guys are still helping out. Very cool to see. What else? Does that get us up to speed?

• 2:46:01Speaker 02

  I think that gets us up to speed, man. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think if people want to go check out, you know, what we have going on with with Train Hard, the best place to go is th.fit, trainhard.fit, but it's th.fit on there. We will have the book. We'll also have obviously access to our newsletter. You know, we've been investing a lot on our weekly newsletter. It's just an opportunity for me to talk to, you know, just people, primarily men, but also women as well, and and just share things that are firing me up, right? Lessons I've learned over my life. And as it as I evolve, the newsletter evolves. And so if you want to join the newsletter, we'd love to have you on there.

• 2:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Sure. You also have jasonkalepa.com.

• 2:46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd go to, you can go there, but I think th.fit is great.

• 2:46:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay, th.fit is the main place. And then you're on Instagram.

• 2:46:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, Jason Kleep on Instagram.

• 2:46:49Jocko Willink?

  You're on Facebook. You have your own Twitter, or sorry, you have your own YouTube. I looked at your Twitter, which is at Jason Kleep. Your last post was in 2020. So.

• 2:46:58Speaker 02

  I gotta get on that.

• 2:47:00Jocko Willink?

  You haven't been on Twitter much, but you're on on the Gram.

• 2:47:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Instagram, I think, is the best place because it's a way that I could actually like engage with people, message with people, share content that's important to me. And then obviously newsletter is a deeper level and so is the podcast.

• 2:47:13Jocko Willink?

  So awesome.

• 2:47:16Jocko Willink?

  Echo.

• 2:47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:47:17Jocko Willink?

  You got any questions?

• 2:47:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:47:18Speaker 02

  So let's.

• 2:47:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, here we go.

• 2:47:19Speaker 02

  First thing.

• 2:47:20Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. What do you got?

• 2:47:22Speaker 01

  Rewind a little bit back to football days.

• 2:47:24Speaker 02

  I gave you the opportunity.

• 2:47:25Speaker 01

  Well, kind of, but yeah. Okay, so you played guard, you said?

• 2:47:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:47:30Speaker 01

  Right, but then you mentioned briefly pulling guard.

• 2:47:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:47:34Speaker 01

  So they had you come in for pulling guard? Or was it like, yeah, you just pull a lot?

• 2:47:40Speaker 02

  No, so in our offense, I think it was the West Coast.

• 2:47:42Speaker 01

  Wait, you know what pulling guard is?

• 2:47:44Jocko Willink?

  No, well, I know what it is. It's called when you pull guard.

• 2:47:46Speaker 01

  Not in, not in.

• 2:47:47Speaker 02

  Jiu Jitsu.

• 2:47:48Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it's different. There's a, if you're a guard, that's your position and you pull. That means you essentially go off. And when the play starts, you go off the line and go to the outside as an outside blocker. You pull with one side or the other. It's so.

• 2:48:02Speaker 02

  Jocko, it's the best.

• 2:48:03Speaker 01

  It, but it does require, like, if you're a pulling guard, like, that's kind of your, you're a specialty kind of guard. That means you're more athletic than, let's say that you're quicker.

• 2:48:12Jocko Willink?

  A little bit of a humble brag when you said he's pulled guard?

• 2:48:14Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 2:48:15Jocko Willink?

  He's a little bit of a humble brag.

• 2:48:16Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 2:48:17Speaker 02

  My favorite thing we did was pull guard because to your point, you'd be on the line, right? And you'd be like, all right, so the play is whatever. And you'd have your running back go around the outside and you would pull and get in front of them. But man, sometimes there's just opportunities just to light people up because they don't see you coming.

• 2:48:33Speaker 01

  And then I expected.

• 2:48:34Speaker 02

  And you're just boom, like, after the game, you'd watch like tape. You'd be like, wow. I mean, obviously sometimes it didn't work out as well, but.

• 2:48:42Jocko Willink?

  How, what was your 40 when you were 260?

• 2:48:45Speaker 02

  I think I got down to.

• 2:48:46Jocko Willink?

  16 or whatever.

• 2:48:47Speaker 02

  I want to say, I mean, who knows if the, if the, you know, we were using like the finger timers. I want to say I got down to a 49. Um, so I got below a five and, you know, I think, like I said, if I had applied myself differently, maybe my journey would have been different in football. I think I had a lot of potential. I just, it was my own fault, just didn't. But, you know, my journey was also different. You know, from there I found CrossFit and all these things and it impacted my life tremendously.

• 2:49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, the. So you were more athletic than your typical guard?

• 2:49:16Speaker 02

  I would just say the offense ran a lot of pulling stuff and I happen to be the guard.

• 2:49:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:49:22Speaker 02

  But it was just hella fun.

• 2:49:23Speaker 01

  That was the question. Okay. So, but were you a good two sixty or kind of like sloppy two sixty? Like what up?

• 2:49:29Speaker 02

  I'd say it was a good two sixty, but could have been a great two sixty if I had worked harder.

• 2:49:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Right on. Um, and then back to the pancake mix. What is that still like? What up? Like what? Where are we at on that?

• 2:49:41Speaker 02

  I feel like we

• 2:49:42Speaker 01

  Batter blast. Batter blaster.

• 2:49:45Speaker 02

  You know what? We, we should Google that after this show and we should look at what they say. Uh, I don't think it's a thing anymore.

• 2:49:50Speaker 01

  That's too bad because like when you think about it, especially with the advent of a protein pancakes and like all this stuff, right? And pancakes, let's face it, brothers. Those are delicious most of the time, you know? So if you combine like a protein batter blaster pancake pack or something like this, bro, I'm telling you, bro, I'm down.

• 2:50:08Speaker 02

  I'm a fan. Maybe we should.

• 2:50:09Jocko Willink?

  Jason's ready to invest.

• 2:50:12Speaker 02

  We should create our own pancake.

• 2:50:15Speaker 01

  It could be something even like, uh, I mean, I don't know. I'm not very, I'm not up to date on the pancake market really. But anything simple like, cause I, we still make pancakes. Yeah. You know, in the morning, whatever, we put milk in the pancakes, by the way.

• 2:50:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:50:30Speaker 01

  But at the, at the same time, as, as good of an experience that is, I'm, I'm just saying general marketplace kind of status is like, hey, if it's super fast and convenient, like in a bottle, pancake mix in a bottle or a blaster or, or X, Y, Z container, something convenient.

• 2:50:43Speaker 02

  You can just use it and put away. Next Jocko fuel product.

• 2:50:46Speaker 01

  Protein pancakes.

• 2:50:47Jocko Willink?

  How's that, how's that milk train treating you?

• 2:50:48Speaker 02

  I like milk. So I, I, I like the Jocko fuel products. I like your guys is, well, we talked about this, like I do men's club workouts, like on a weekly basis, we just go do hard stuff together. And I'll have 20, 40 guys show up and just go do hard stuff. And it's one of the, the best things I've ever done in my life. I just, I love it. Um, so I think that more men need to have that shared experience with each other, especially right now. Anyways, I'll roll out the Yeti cooler and I'll have the mulks in there. And it just, it's, it's, it's legit. I like that product. Um, and then obviously I take, um, I take some of your other obviously products, but the, the milk after workout is Joint Warfare is my favorite problem.

• 2:51:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that one's a huge subscription thing. People subscribe, which is, uh, to me, that's an indicator of how well or how much people like something is they subscribe to it. Yeah. So Joint Warfare is like our biggest subscription thing because people get on it. They don't ever want to get off of it. Uh, I was saying before we, before we started recording, cause I had a protocol shift because I'll have a go on the way to train jujitsu. When I got done, I used to just go straight to Mok, but now I'm having to hydrate when I get done. And then I get home and have a Mok and that's like a trifecta.

• 2:51:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51:59Jocko Willink?

  Glory right there. Cause I sweat a lot and you know, I get done training. I've, I mean, I swear, I probably sweat out. I probably sweat out five pounds, you know, when I trained jujitsu, I probably on, yeah, I probably sweat out five pounds at least.

• 2:52:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:13Jocko Willink?

  And so I need to rehydrate and the hydration is just so good and it just nails it, you know, get home, feel freaking GTG.

• 2:52:22Speaker 02

  If you have a workout and you don't sweat, now you say you sweat a lot. So maybe for the average person, maybe it doesn't sweat as much as Jocko. If you don't sweat, did you still get in, do you still feel like you got in a good workout?

• 2:52:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. There's certain workouts where I'm not going to sweat as much. Like if I'm just like deadlifting someday, then there's probably, I might not sweat at all. You know, I might be, cause I'm just doing like, you know, triples or something like that. And I'm taking long rests.

• 2:52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the, the weather and all that.

• 2:52:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Plus the weather, if it's cold, you know, I might not sweat, but I, I do break a sweat pretty easily. Even if I'm just like, just doing something like a, a heavy lift day or something like that, I'll, I'll still probably at least at a minimum, break a sweat. And then in the freaking summertime, it just gets ridiculous. It's just like a disaster of sweat. It's just, it's just gross, you know?

• 2:53:09Speaker 01

  Why do you ask that?

• 2:53:11Speaker 02

  Uh, just because for me, it's like, it's this weird mental thing that like, I feel like if I don't sweat, I didn't work out and I'm not. It, it's just a me thing. Like you could still get a great workout if, and obviously we're in, we're in California. So the weather is pretty normal. If you're in the middle of, you know.

• 2:53:27Jocko Willink?

  If you're in Minnesota.

• 2:53:28Speaker 02

  Minnesota during the winter.

• 2:53:30Jocko Willink?

  You're not sweating for six months.

• 2:53:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so, but I think for me, it's like, if, once I start sweating, that's when I feel like my body's getting primed and ready. You know, when I look at a warm up, it should be doing two things, increasing core body temperature and taking my body through a full range of motion. That's what I need to be, that's what I'm thinking about. Am I priming my engine? For when I'm ready to perform.

• 2:53:50Jocko Willink?

  Are you doing the same warm up every day?

• 2:53:52Speaker 02

  Well, when I was competing, it would be the same.

• 2:53:54Jocko Willink?

  How long would it take?

• 2:53:56Speaker 02

  Uh, that'd be like a 15 minute warm up. What I would be trying to do, like I even at sometimes would bring certain machines like a GHD to to warm up areas because I had a specific protocol that mentally and physically would put me in a state. Cause what you want to try and do when you're competing is you want to try and you want to try and replicate things that your body starts saying to itself, okay, I'm getting primed and ready. So if I always had the same protocol, it'd be like nutrition. People eat a certain way and then like three, three days before an event, they change it because they want to eat clean or do whatever. It's like, dude, what are you doing? Just stick to the plan. If you want to change it, change it months in advance. So your body can get adjusted to it. Same thing goes for warmups. I would have the same warmup every day.

• 2:54:36Speaker 02

  10 hip extensions, 10 GHD situps, row, repeat three rounds, move on. And it would, it would just-

• 2:54:42Jocko Willink?

  Move on to what?

• 2:54:43Speaker 02

  I would just move on to like more skill specific for that day. Maybe it's gonna be, but it was always the, the row and the GHD was like my go to.

• 2:54:50Jocko Willink?

  Row like as in Concept 2 rower?

• 2:54:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, like a 500 meter row, GHD situps to, to, to basically open up my hips and get my, like my, my quads firing and then rotate over to engage my posterior chain and do hip extensions. So I'm, I'm testing my midline. I'm opening up. I would do that and I would just repeat that for like three to five rounds. And then once I was ready, then I moved on to more specific for that day. Maybe it's opening my lap on a front rack position. Maybe it was, who knows? But when I did that, it mentally put me in a state where I was ready to, ready to crush.

• 2:55:25Jocko Willink?

  Are you doing more mobility now?

• 2:55:28Speaker 02

  Not really. I, I think that I, I, I, I think that deep tissue work and rolling is one of the most underutilized tools ever. I think quad smashing with a kettlebell and smashing in general is, is highly underutilized and everybody should be doing it.

• 2:55:43Jocko Willink?

  What is smashing?

• 2:55:44Speaker 02

  You take a kettlebell and you just put it right on your quad and you just-

• 2:55:47Jocko Willink?

  Let it rest it there?

• 2:55:48Speaker 02

  Just, just sit down on the floor and just put it right, put it right at the dimple, right above your knee and just, just breathe and let it get deeper, then move it around and- start to break things up, right? The way that it was described to me is if you look at your skin, you look at your muscle, you look at your fascia, it's on top of that muscle. You want your fascia to just to smoothly go over as if you're ironing it out with a foam roller and you can do that with the, you know, foam roller kettlebell barbell. So I do that, but I really use movement as a way to increase my range of motion. So for example, you know, overhead squatting with just a light bar, just to kind of sit down at the bottom, make sure my hips and ankles are still there. I want to make sure that I'm still doing those.

• 2:56:30Jocko Willink?

  Check. Echo Charles.

• 2:56:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was the thing about the sweating because I was literally just thinking about that when you're, um, cause you, you say sweat every day. It's one of your protocols, right? Sweat every day. And then, um, and I did a workout and usually I start sweating a little bit and then I'll do this like conditioning thing on as far as generally typically speaking, um, I'll do a conditioning thing at the end. And after the conditioning part, that's when the sweat just like drenched in sweat. But the other day, cause it's getting colder, I did the whole same protocol and I'm like, wait, I'm not even sweating that much. And I'm thinking like it, it literally doesn't feel like I worked out that hard, but I did the exact same thing as I always do. But I was like, oh no, cause it's cold right now, you know? So to answer your, as far as your question, do you feel like you work out? It is a feeling, huh? It's like, I feel like I did, even though you

• 2:57:18Speaker 01

  literally same output, same output as you always do, but you don't feel.

• 2:57:22Speaker 02

  I mean, even like, even like, even like, for example, earlier today I'm at a hotel gym and I'm getting after it and it was pretty hot in the hotel gym. And so I started sweating sooner than I would if I was in my garage or at a gym. And I'm like, oh, I'm getting a good one right now. But I know I'm not like, it's all the same stuff. It's just a psychological thing. You just gotta be like, hey, man, just, just chill, dude. You're fine.

• 2:57:40Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever use a heart rate monitor?

• 2:57:42Speaker 02

  I have in the past. I, I think there is value to them for sure. One of the things I think is really interesting about heart monitors and Tim Kennedy uses his a lot for rolling jiu jitsu is how do I take an athlete on the mats with a heart rate monitor, take them off the mats and replicate, if not enhance that heart rate, doing other stuff? That's something I've been thinking about lately.

• 2:58:01Jocko Willink?

  What did he find? What does he find when he uses it? Is he finding like? Is he, is he working really hard? Is he finding out that it's, that he's, that he can rest more? Or he should be resting more, or he should be putting out more? Like, what's the research?

• 2:58:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I gotta ask him what his data is showing him at this point, but I know that he wears the HARRY monitor like regularly and he's trying to get in specific zones. I've never really like trained heart rate wise. Um, I think about more as a breathing cadence, especially for like long distance running. So when I was really running with a track coach regularly, we would utilize time and, and breath as like indicators, like how, what is your cadence? What's your breath rate and how are you performing? Those were things I would see about because I wasn't, I wouldn't be able to have a HARRY monitor, whatever necessarily, all the events in the games. Nowadays, people are a little bit more technologically advanced and they start using it, but five years ago wasn't the case.

• 2:58:55Speaker 01

  What's your favorite EMOM? Like number, just bait your, your, your jam EMOM.

• 2:59:00Speaker 02

  Well, I, I mean, I, I think the, the 10, uh, the 15 EMOM, 15 burpees every minute on the minute for 10 minutes. There's also one called death row. That's pretty gnarly. It's 20 cal row and 15 burpees the next minute for 20 minutes. And so that's, that's, that's.

• 2:59:16Speaker 01

  So what, so how does that work? It's alternating? You do the row and then on the next minute?

• 2:59:20Speaker 02

  15 burpees.

• 2:59:21Speaker 01

  Phase burpees. So it's like an EMOM alternating.

• 2:59:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I mean, on that one, the goal is nice, deep breaths. Get your hurry under control and you're going like 50 seconds at each one. And so if you try and go too fast, you know, the thing about EMOMs, thing about workouts is you want to think about it almost like you're breathing, like you're swimming. So when you're swimming, you find your breathing cadence. It's very important. As soon as you get out of your cadence, you could freak out really quickly. Same thing goes with workouts. You've got to find the cadence and you need your brain to feel like it's going to get oxygen. If you, if you, like in jujitsu, if you breathe, breathe, breathe, then you stop breathing, your brain freaks out, but if you find a nice cadence, it's going to help you keep your heart rate more lower so that that EMOM is a good example of that.

• 3:00:04Speaker 01

  Cause that's different than like a minute in between sets. So, cause like.

• 3:00:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's a hell of a lot different.

• 3:00:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, because.

• 3:00:11Jocko Willink?

  It's basically non-stop for 20 minutes. I was gonna say, cause he says it's like swimming, it's like drowning. Because even what you were saying earlier, you know, the first like if you're doing five reps of something, the first time you're like, oh, this is so easy. By, you know, you fast forward seven minutes, it's taking you that whole time. And you're, by the time you get done, there's like four seconds left and you just wanna, you ever do that one Kelsu?

• 3:00:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:00:32Jocko Willink?

  That, that, that to me is a savage workout. So it's five on the minute, five burpees. Um, max thrusters with one thirty-five and you gotta go until you get to a hundred thrusters.

• 3:00:46Speaker 01

  Wait, so you go five burpees and then the thrusters?

• 3:00:49Jocko Willink?

  So check it out. The watch starts beep. You're gonna do five burpees and then you do as many thrusters as you can in the remaining whatever forty-five seconds. And this is a destructive.

• 3:01:01Speaker 02

  Which ten would be like legit.

• 3:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:01:04Speaker 02

  Like if you get ten, one thirty-five is a heavy thruster.

• 3:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:01:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it, it sucks and it takes like a half an hour to do this workout. Cause you, for me, I was getting like, I'll get like four in the beginning. And then I'm getting like three and sometimes you, sometimes you get like a single.

• 3:01:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:01:19Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, I'm a loser.

• 3:01:20Speaker 01

  So wait, after the first minute, you just start again?

• 3:01:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:23Speaker 01

  Oh damn.

• 3:01:24Speaker 02

  So basically the thing about it is, I mean, even if you're, I'm saying if you're pumping, but let's just say you do five burpees, that takes you about fifteen seconds. Let's just say twenty seconds at the most, right? And then from there, you have another forty seconds to get in, you know, five to seven thrusters. And then you restart again.

• 3:01:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna, I'm over here to tell you, I ain't getting five to, I'm not getting five to seven.

• 3:01:43Speaker 02

  Or whatever it is.

• 3:01:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:45Speaker 02

  It depends if you got your knee sleeves on and, and, and weight belt on, you're ready to go.

• 3:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:01:49Jocko Willink?

  Don't depend on nothing. You get down to minute like nine and you're like, bro, I'm doing, I, I, I've done it where I've given me getting like singles.

• 3:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:01:57Jocko Willink?

  You're just freaking exhausted. You're like, you know, having a, a breakdown.

• 3:02:02Speaker 01

  That's crazy how like a workout, just that small shift in, so okay, so think, go back to your, uh, fifteen burpees. Every minute on the minute.

• 3:02:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:02:11Speaker 01

  That's different than do fifteen burpees. Okay, okay. So we'll do this. So let's say on average, give or take, you do fifteen burpees, how many, how many seconds do you have left?

• 3:02:21Speaker 02

  Fifteen burpees takes you about, it should take you about forty-five to fifty seconds. If you're doing it at the cadence that I'm referring to.

• 3:02:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:02:28Speaker 02

  That should be like up. Down, down, and you're, you're trying to keep your hurry under control. Cause otherwise, if you just do 15 burpees and fast cadence, it's gonna take you like, I don't know, 30 seconds.

• 3:02:37Speaker 01

  Okay, so, so perfect. So how's this, the, the small shift, this part is interesting to me. So on average, you got 15, 10, 15 seconds rest between burpees. If you're doing it on a, on a, the cadence that you're talking about. That's a different workout than you do 15 burpees, rest for 15 seconds, 10 sets.

• 3:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Totally different.

• 3:03:00Speaker 01

  It's a different workout.

• 3:03:01Jocko Willink?

  Because, because you could take a minute.

• 3:03:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you do those little things.

• 3:03:06Speaker 02

  That's why the clock, that's why for the def reset, it's so important that we're incorporating e-moms. E-moms are so underutilized by the general population. They're incredibly important because it's now you against the clock.

• 3:03:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not you. Even when you're like working, you're against the clock.

• 3:03:22Speaker 02

  Dude, think about it. Like, let's just say the first time you do it, if you do this with me right now, I'd be like, hey, you know, Echo, let's do 10 burpees every minute on the minute for 10 minutes. I'll do it with you and I'll talk to you about breathing cadence. By the time you get to minute seven, you're gonna be exhausted, but you gotta fight because you, that clock's gonna keep going.

• 3:03:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, at a certain point, you're not, you might not have rest anymore. The, actually, this was a basis of a lot of workouts I used to do with my kids.

• 3:03:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:03:47Jocko Willink?

  When my kids, my kids, the, the five burpees, max pull-ups, five burpees, max push-ups, five burpees, max lunges. Like, I would do that with my kids when they were little. I think it mentally scarred me.

• 3:03:59Speaker 01

  That makes sense to me completely.

• 3:04:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I was not, uh, the best, uh, you know, dad at this point, but it's a, it's a great thing. That, that Kelsu of five burpees and then whatever for the rest of the minute is freaking savage.

• 3:04:13Speaker 02

  But think about what you did with your kids. Think about the gift you gave them. Like, yes, there's always ways that we.

• 3:04:17Jocko Willink?

  You might wanna check with them on that gift.

• 3:04:19Speaker 02

  There's always ways we can improve, right? And I think we all wanna be the best we can. But like, we're trying to provide them for a world that's gonna be tough. And if we could utilize fitness as a resource, that's great. You know, like, if you get them in the garage and you're fighting for five reps, you only get four, you know, you gotta overcome that, right? Or you, you wanna keep pushing or, like, for me with Ava, we strength train every morning. That's what we prioritize, cause she has other stuff going on. And, you know, it's a time that we can connect. I think every father should. The thing about, here's what's interesting about fitness compared to anything else in life. If I say, hey, dad's working hard. It's very hard for a child to understand what working hard is if you're talking about behind a computer or at work. But when you see your parents sweating, getting after it, dude, they just, they just know what hard work is. If you could do that with your kids, I think it's really important.

• 3:05:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Echo, anything else?

• 3:05:06Speaker 01

  I don't want to stay here all day, but so we'll catch up after.

• 3:05:10Jocko Willink?

  Call her for this one.

• 3:05:10Speaker 01

  We'll call her for this one. Yes, thank you.

• 3:05:12Jocko Willink?

  Jason, any closing thoughts, bro?

• 3:05:13Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I just, I really appreciate the relationship we've developed over the last couple of years. You know, it's been a, it's been a big goal of mine for like, I don't know, I probably messaged you first time like over a decade ago on social media. Like, hey man, I'd love to chat with you about jujitsu and, and fitness and whatever. And here we are, you know, so I just wanted to say like, if you have goals, when the time is right, when things, when the, when the universe aligns and if you continue to put in the hard work, like opportunities will present themselves.

• 3:05:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we got it scheduled seven years ago and here you are.

• 3:05:42Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, man. Awesome. Uh, thanks for coming out, bro. And it's, you know, thanks for sharing the information, I, what you're doing. Appreciate what you're doing to help people get stronger, get faster, get healthier. It's just cool to see your path and share these stories. And also obviously thanks for what you and your wife do to help continue this battle against cancer. Um, saving lives, man. And you're saving lives on all fronts and it's much appreciated. Thanks for coming out. Sorry it took seven years, bro.

• 3:06:13Speaker 02

  That's it? Yeah. We'll do it again seven years from now.

• 3:06:16Jocko Willink?

  Right on, right on. I'll see you at the death reset. Let's go.

• 3:06:18Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 3:06:20Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Jason Khalipa has left the building. Can see lots of working out involved.

• 3:06:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Lots of being on the path. If we're working hard, if we're getting our, as many reps as possible.

• 3:06:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:06:37Jocko Willink?

  We need some fuel.

• 3:06:38Speaker 02

  Or if we're doing every minute on the minute too.

• 3:06:41Jocko Willink?

  We recommend Jocko Fuel.

• 3:06:43Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, we do. Yeah.

• 3:06:46Jocko Willink?

  I kinda went through my protocol, which is a really good protocol at this juncture in time.

• 3:06:49Speaker 01

  What protocol? Oh, the Jocko Fuel protocol?

• 3:06:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. It's go on the way to the gym. It's get done training. This is jujitsu. Cause I don't, in the more, in the early morning, I don't, I don't have any, uh, anything besides water.

• 3:07:07Speaker 01

  Oh, natty, just going in.

• 3:07:09Jocko Willink?

  Go natty in the morning. That's an early morning.

• 3:07:11Speaker 01

  Huh, that's cool.

• 3:07:12Jocko Willink?

  But for the, for the jujitsu protocol, go on the way there. Get done with the training. Hydrate, gonna need it. Awfully sweaty. Get home, milk. By the way, might be having dinner in like, an hour, but I'm still having a milk.

• 3:07:28Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 3:07:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause I need it, I'm going catabolic.

• 3:07:31Speaker 01

  Hundred percent agree with that.

• 3:07:32Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you heard, you heard Jason talk about joint warfare?

• 3:07:36Jocko Willink?

  You're putting strain on your joints. You're gonna need that joint warfare. So there you go. Check it out. Check out JacoFuel.com. Also, you can get the stuff at Vitamin Shoppe. You can get it at Wawa. You can get it at GNC, Military Commissaries, Commissaries, Hafiz, Hannaford, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wakeford, ShopRite, HEB Down in Tejas. Leif posted up like a full, full like, uh, entire scenario

• 3:07:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:00Jocko Willink?

  of Jocko Fuel at HEB.

• 3:08:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:02Jocko Willink?

  So appreciate that. Everyone down there in Tejas getting after it. Meyer up in the Midwest, same thing. Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields. And, and look, you've got a little gym. Like, like what Jason has? He's got gyms. And guess what they sell at his gyms? Jocko Fuel. Why? He wants his people to be stronger, faster, smarter and better. So if you wanna do that at your gym, your CrossFit gym, your jujitsu gym, your powerlifting gym, your Olympic lifting training facility, your gymnastics gym, whatever. Your Globo Gym. Maybe you got a global Metroplex Gym. You still need some of that Jocko Fuel. Email J F Sales at JacoFuel.com. You can sell the goodness to your people. So there you go.

• 3:08:43Speaker 01

  It's true. Also, Origin USA, we're doing the jujitsu. Need a gi. You're doing the gi and no gi. So when you put on the gi, best make sure it's a Origin gi, trust me. Once you go Origin, you don't go back to these other sweatshop abrasive straitjacket gis. In fact, Brad, part of the freaking half of jujitsu is making your gi not feel like a straitjacket. That's half of what jujitsu is. Brad, so don't just out the gate, purchase a straitjacket gi, get the Origin gi. That's the luxury gi right there.

• 3:09:14Jocko Willink?

  We're not doing that.

• 3:09:15Speaker 01

  No, all made in America, by the way.

• 3:09:17Jocko Willink?

  All made in America, by the way. So, Origin USA, by the way, you can't wear your gi to the grocery store. I mean, you can technically, you can, you can't wear it to the club. You know, you can't wear even really, honestly, you really shouldn't be wearing it to a restaurant on a date with your wife. Now, look, it might look good.

• 3:09:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:09:35Jocko Willink?

  And your wife might be kinda down for the cause if you post up in your gi.

• 3:09:38Speaker 01

  Sometimes, yeah.

• 3:09:39Jocko Willink?

  For date night, but there's also a decent chance that would just annoy her and make her think that you're weird. So, that's why we have jeans. You can get Origin jeans, you can get Origin boots, training gear, right? The RTX gear for training, got everything, everything that you're gonna need for that one.

• 3:09:55Speaker 01

  Which is, by the way, 100% accuracy that Origin jeans are my date night standard uniform. 100% accurate. I'm not saying like sometimes.

• 3:10:06Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 3:10:07Speaker 01

  It's the standard uniform.

• 3:10:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:09Speaker 01

  Origin jeans.

• 3:10:10Jocko Willink?

  And what does your wife assess?

• 3:10:11Speaker 01

  Massively approved.

• 3:10:12Jocko Willink?

  Approved?

• 3:10:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Kind of a big way.

• 3:10:15Speaker 01

  Very much so. One, uh, one time I wore jeans to, I think it was to recording, and so I was leaving my standard recording uniform of shorts, by the way. I was wearing jeans, I don't know why.

• 3:10:27Jocko Willink?

  She thought you were...

• 3:10:28Speaker 01

  My kids thought I was like going somewhere, you know?

• 3:10:31Jocko Willink?

  That's the same way with my house. They see me put on jeans, they're like, oh, going big time. Uh, by the way, everything that we're talking about, you look, you can make clothes, right? If you, let's say you wanna be like a t-shirt, you wanna make t-shirt sales, or you wanna sell your shorts or whatever, you can do that. And you make them in China, and you're supporting sweatshops. We make everything in America. We grow the material in America. We weave the material in America. It's 100% American made. This is how we maintain national security in this country. This is how we maintain economic security because we have forgotten how to manufacture. And we're bringing it back. So, originusa.com. Get yourself some American made goodness. There you go.

• 3:11:17Speaker 01

  It's true. Also, Jocko's store, call Jocko's store. Discipline equals freedom. Look, DEF. When, when we say DEF reset, you know what DEF stands for? D E F. Discipline equals freedom. It's true. Discipline does equal freedom. I had to have a discipline equals freedom talk with one of my sons recently. Long story, I'm not gonna go into it. We're good to go. Hopefully it was assimilated. But nonetheless, you want to represent while we're on this path that Jason was talking about, that we're talking about. You want to represent. Discipline equals freedom. That's where you can get your shirts.

• 3:11:49Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go.

• 3:11:49Speaker 01

  Hats, the whole deal. Also, subscription. If you want a new shirt every month. Discipline equals freedom still, just in a different flavor from time to time. Every month, new shirt, new design.

• 3:11:59Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you get tired of that chocolate and vanilla and you want to get some mint chocolate chip.

• 3:12:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:12:06Jocko Willink?

  That's what the shirt locker is for t-shirts.

• 3:12:08Speaker 01

  Sure. It's actually more than that. You got, now you're gonna get the mint chocolate chip, then you're gonna get the other one, then the next one, the new one, the other one.

• 3:12:15Jocko Willink?

  The cotton candy?

• 3:12:16Speaker 01

  Just cotton candy, whatever you need. Whatever you need. Oh, yeah. So, it's like a gift, like a Christmas gift every single month. People seem to like it. Anyway, it's called the Shirt Locker, if you don't know. New design every month, subscription.

• 3:12:28Jocko Willink?

  Does Amazon ever deliver anything to your house?

• 3:12:31Speaker 01

  Does Amazon? Yeah, from time to time, for sure.

• 3:12:34Jocko Willink?

  Whenever Amazon shows up at the house, I always ask my wife, oh, you got me a present? And it'll be like cleaning, whatever.

• 3:12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, some duct tape or gaff tape.

• 3:12:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like the dishwashing liquid. You know what I mean?

• 3:12:48Speaker 01

  I do know what you mean, actually.

• 3:12:50Jocko Willink?

  And so, I'm always like, oh, you gave me a present? And she says, yeah. And I open it up and it's like deter laundry.

• 3:12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's looking at you like, hey.

• 3:12:57Jocko Willink?

  Getting nothing. But if you're on that Shirt Locker, when the package shows up, kind of a big deal.

• 3:13:02Speaker 01

  You see the little X flag on it right there. You're like, oh, that's when you know. That's when you know.

• 3:13:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so check it out. Shirt Locker.

• 3:13:09Speaker 01

  That's on Jocko's store, jacostore.com. That's where you can get.

• 3:13:12Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to the podcast. Oh, don't forget about, if you need to eat food, look, we're, we're drinking milk, but we still want to have a steak. Go to primalbeef.com or go to coloradocraftbeef.com. Just the best steak delivered to your house. By the way, it's also like burgers. You ever had a really good burger?

• 3:13:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:13:33Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, burgers is a, I mean, when you, I bet if you assess death row meals, a good percentage of them are hamburgers. Am I wrong?

• 3:13:42Speaker 01

  I don't think you're wrong. No, I think you're correct.

• 3:13:44Jocko Willink?

  And I, I'm gonna tell you right now, if, if you, if you're on death row right now and you're listening, and you wanna have a death row burger? For your last meal, go to colorado craft beef.com or go to primalbeef.com and order yourself some ground meat. And make it with that, a hundred percent.

• 3:14:00Speaker 01

  You are actually correct, even in practice. So, not last night, the night before, all the primal beef, all of them. The burgers that I had. I took, or sorry, I took them out, they were getting thawed out. They go, hey, I'm, you know, make as many burgers as you need to for, you know, whatever kids, and then I'm gonna make the rest for chili. So I'm like, cool. But I just, I took all of them after they were thawed. You know, when you take the paper off of them?

• 3:14:26Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:14:26Speaker 01

  You know, I took them out, I just bound them all together, mashed them up all together, into this one big, huge burger ball. Put some seasoning in there, then I made a bunch of like thicker burgers. Zero burgers for the, or zero amount of grumby for the chili. It was all burgers, death row burgers. Now that you mention it.

• 3:14:47Jocko Willink?

  Death row burgers.

• 3:14:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:14:48Jocko Willink?

  We got it going on.

• 3:14:49Speaker 01

  You stacked the double thick ones, all day.

• 3:14:52Jocko Willink?

  What's the seasoning scenario?

• 3:14:54Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, I don't know the name of it.

• 3:14:56Jocko Willink?

  We'll get back to you with the death row burgers.

• 3:14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's two methods of seasoning. I don't wanna go too deep into it. I'll go kinda deep in it, into it. There's one seasoning that my younger brother, Yata, turned me on to. I forget what it's called. I'll, I'll show it to you later. Um, I forget what it's called, but you just put that on it. That's it, all required. The second one is the seasoning from Costco. They don't sell it. You can't buy it anywhere unless you sometimes can find it on eBay, but it's from Costco. I don't know what it's called either.

• 3:15:22Jocko Willink?

  Business now?

• 3:15:23Speaker 01

  No, it's like, I think it's like their seasoning that, that, that they use. Like, if you go to Costco in the, in the place where you get the steaks, it's for steak. You can say, hey, can I get a little container of that seasoning? And then they'll give you some. And then, but that's the secret one. Put a little bit of that on it. Oh, man.

• 3:15:42Jocko Willink?

  All right, well, make yourself some death row burgers. Primalbeef.com, colorado craft beef.com. Great companies, doing the right things for the right reasons. Also subscribe to the podcast, also jocko underground.com. We got that little other podcast that we do, adjacent materials, Q and A all the time, costs $8.18 a month unless you can't afford that. And if you can't, no big deal. Email [email protected] because we own that platform and no one's going to kick us off. YouTube, we're on there, subscribe to that. We also got psychological warfare. We got flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Meyer, making you cool stuff to hang on your wall. Bunch of books, obviously as many reps as possible by Jason Khalipa. The audiobook is

• 3:16:23Jocko Willink?

  available for sure. So check that out. Also, I've written a bunch of books, you know, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. There's a new edition of that. I'm getting feedback. People are really finding that to be pragmatic and helpful in their world. Final Spin, little novel, Stay Clean. Written a bunch of other books. You guys know the deal. Kids books, get your, get the kid books for the kids that you know. Do that. Get the kids books for the kids that you know. That's my recommendations. Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, and five. Get Mikey and the Dragons. And then of course, About Face by Hackworth, which I wrote the foreword for the new version, Extreme Ownership Dichotomy Leadership. They're all there. Also, Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We

• 3:17:07Jocko Willink?

  solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details. We just had a sold out show down in Dallas. We're gonna have another sold out show in San Diego next. So if you want to come to one of our events, or you want to do a field training exercise, which Jason talked about today, go to echelonfront.com for details. We also have an online training academy. You can't, leadership isn't an inoculation. You get one shot, now you're good to go. You need to train just like going to the gym. You don't go to the gym once. You go to the gym all the time. So if you have questions about that, or you have questions about leadership, we have questions about life, or you want to take courses about leadership, go to extremeownership.com, get enrolled. If you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families,

• 3:17:51Jocko Willink?

  you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a incredible charity organization to help out all these people that have served. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, HeroesAndHorses.org. Micah Fink has taken our veterans up into the wilderness where they can get lost up there so they can find themselves. Also Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. So check that out. If you want to connect with us, well, Jason, he's at th.fit. He's

• 3:18:26Jocko Willink?

  also at, on Instagram, on Facebook, on YouTube. He's at Jason Khalipa. That's K-H-A-L-I-P-A. And Echo's at Echo Charles. And I'm at Jocko Willink. And just be careful, because there's an algorithm that literally wants to steal your life from you. Steal your life, steal your time. He wants to take it away from you and have you scrolling through a freaking screen, looking at dumb shit for 38 minutes. You can, you can write a book, you can do a workout, you can do jiu-jitsu, you can go surfing in 38 minutes. Or you can freaking look at a bunch of dumb shit on a little screen that's breaking your brain. So just

• 3:19:09Jocko Willink?

  watch out for the algorithm. It's a monster. And thanks to all of our military out there right now. The world's a freaking tinderbox right now, and it can explode at any moment. And all of you in our military are out there standing to watch. We appreciate and thank you for your service. And also thanks to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all first responders. You're in the same scenario right now, here at home. Thank you for protecting us on the home front. And to everyone else out there, the clock is ticking. Time is limited. You don't get a reset. You don't get another chance. Be nice. You could live

• 3:19:53Jocko Willink?

  this life and just get another chance to do it again, but you don't get it. It is what it is.

• 3:20:01Jocko Willink?

  So what are you going to do with it? How many reps are you going to get? I recommend, you know your why, you focus on what you can control, you work hard, shift gears, reevaluate, and I recommend you get as many reps as possible.

• 3:20:18Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.